A Proposal for a Standard With Innovation Management System

Exploring Regulatory Focus, Entrepreneurial Intention,
Self-Efficacy and Entrepreneurial Skills Among Malaysian
Higher Learning Institution Students
Zaidatol Akmaliah Lope Pihie 1 , Afsaneh Bagheri 1 and Zaidatol Haslinda
Abdullah Sani 2
1
Faculty of Educational Studies, University Putra Malaysia, Serdang Selangor,
Malaysia
2
Inti International University, Nilai, Seremban, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia
zalp@educ.upm.my
bagheri@putra.upm.edu.my
z.haslinda@gmail.com
Abstract: Specifying factors affecting students to choose entrepreneurship as their future career path and step
into the challenging process of a new venture creation has been one of the main concerns of entrepreneurship
researchers, educators and policy makers. However, our knowledge is limited about the factors that enable
students to become entrepreneurs. This study aims to explore the level of regulatory focus, entrepreneurial
intention, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial skills among students in Malaysian private higher
education institutions. Participants were 391 students from private higher education institutions in Klang Valley,
Malaysia where most of the private institutions of higher education are located. Of all the participants, 242 were
male (62%) and 148 (38%) were female. The students were from a multicultural background and different
countries. Data were collected via a questionnaire consisting of 50 items. The questionnaire is divided into five
subsections including: 1. demographic information, 2. regulatory focus, 3. entrepreneurial intention, 4.
entrepreneurial self-efficacy and 5. entrepreneurial skills. The students were asked to respond on a 5 point Likert
scale, anchored from 1 denoting strongly disagree to 5 strongly agree. Analysis of the data indicates the majority
of the students (71%) intend to become an entrepreneur and about 74% of them agreed that their immediate
family will support them to become an entrepreneur. Although, most of the students (76%) had no business
experiences and 68% of them had never taken any entrepreneurship courses, the majority of them (81%)
believed that students should learn entrepreneurship. Moreover, the students scored moderate in all dimensions
of the entrepreneurial capabilities including self-regulatory focus (mean = 3.22), entrepreneurial self-efficacy
(mean= 3.21), entrepreneurial intention (mean=3.13) and entrepreneurial skills (mean=3.49). Analysis of the data
regarding gender of the participants shows that scores for male students are quite higher than their female
counterparts in all dimensions of entrepreneurial capabilities. Implications of the findings for entrepreneurship
education and practice are discussed in this paper.
Keywords: entrepreneurship education, self-regulatory focus, entrepreneurial intention, entrepreneurial selfefficacy,
entrepreneurial skills
1. Introduction
Specifying factors affecting students to choose entrepreneurship as their future career path and step
into the challenging process of a new venture creation has been one of the main concerns of
entrepreneurship researchers, educators and policy makers. This is because entrepreneurship only
happens if there is an individual who has the inspiration and capability to burden the challenges and
responsibilities of a new venture creation. Many researchers raised the question of what makes
entrepreneurs different from other people or those who are just self-employed (Gu¨rol and Atsan
2006; Kuratko 2005; Mueller and Thomas 2000). To answer the question, researchers examined the
innate characteristics that entrepreneurs are endowed with such as “locus of control”, “need for
achievement” (Hansemark 1998; McClelland 1961) and “tolerance for ambiguity” (Teoh and Foo
1997). The contradictory research findings and relatively static nature of entrepreneurs’ personal
characteristics has led researchers to look at the entrepreneurial qualities that have long-term effects
on one’s behavior and action and can be acquired and improved by education and training (Kundu
and Rani 2008; Bryant 2006; Krueger et al. 2000, Mueller and Thomas 2000; Chen et al. 1998; Ajzen
1991). However, there is an ongoing debate among scholars on which characteristics of
entrepreneurs can be taught (Klein and Bullock 2006; Henry et al. 2005) and which of the qualities
enable students to step into the challenging process of entrepreneurship (Wilson et al. 2007). This
study aimed to narrow the gap in literature and empirical research through exploring the level of
regulatory focus, entrepreneurial intention, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial skills as a
set of personal factors motivating and enabling entrepreneurial behavior and action among students.
This study seeks to contribute to entrepreneurship education theory development by exploring the
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