Entrepreneurial potential in less innovative regions: the impact of social and cultural environment.
Date
2017Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role that the sociocultural, family and
university environment play in the entrepreneurial intention of young people in a peripheral and less
innovative region.
Design/methodology/approach – The authors adopted the perspective of the theory of planned behavior
and made an empirical study with a sample of 1,064 Spanish university students who voluntarily participated
in the GUESSS Project answering an online questionnaire. A methodology based on structural equations was
used employing the partial least squares structural equation modeling estimation technique.
Findings – The results show that the university environment directly influences attitude, self-confidence
and motivation, and indirectly the students’ entrepreneurial intention. The social context also exerts
a weak direct influence on the perceived attitudes or desires toward the option to start a business and
indirectly on the intention.
Originality/value – The main contribution of this paper seems to confirm what previous literature
highlighted in the terms of regional specificities on the link between innovation systems, the impact of
entrepreneurial potential and economic development. In this sense, the university context can play an
important role in generating improvements in the entrepreneurial intention’s antecedents of young people
with greater potential for innovation in peripheral regions. Therefore, when it comes to defining policies to
improve entrepreneurship in these regions, it seems that the establishment of entrepreneurship education and
motivation programs in universities is a very effective tool to increase perceived attitude toward the option to
start a new business