Effect of the Motivations and Personal Characteristics on the Traditional and Social Entrepreneurship Orientation of University Students

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the explanatory power of variables raised in the literature to predict the business intent in a model based on the theory of planned behavior. Specifically, personal characteristics and possible motivations

of University students that could affect its intention to gestate a company in the Puerto Rican context are identified. The results of this study provide supporting evidence for eight of the nine hypotheses tested, confirming some of the theoretical relationships in models based on the theory of planned behavior. The business intentions are directly influenced by the desirability and entrepreneurial intentions and indirectly by gender and some personality traits. Evidence supports that traditional entrepreneurship is motivated by desire for autonomy and opportunism, while the social entrepreneurship by the desire for common good and autonomy, but is not an attractive option for participants. The study helps to identify the skills and competencies that should be developed in students to promote entrepreneurship and recommends relevant curriculum changes. It contributes to research with a model based on the theory of planned behavior, personal characteristics and motivations to explain social and traditional entrepreneurial intentions. The study advances a step further from previous studies identifying those features of the personality of the students that make students more likely to become entrepreneurs, employees or to emigrate, testing its possible predictive value. Also, it provides more reliable scales to future researchers in the field.