Predicting entrepreneurial career intentions: values and the theory of planned behavior

Marjan J. Gorgievski*, Ute Stephan, Mariola Laguna, Juan Antonio Moriano

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Integrating predictions from the theory of human values with the theory of planned behavior (TPB), our primary goal is to investigate mechanisms through which individual values are related to entrepreneurial career intentions using a sample of 823 students from four European countries. We find that openness and self-enhancement values relate positively to entrepreneurial career intentions and that these relationships are partly mediated by attitudes toward entrepreneurship, self-efficacy, and, to a lesser extent, by social norms. Values and TPB constructs partially mediated cross-country differences in entrepreneurial intentions. Spanish students showed lower entrepreneurial intentions as compared to Dutch, German, and Polish students, which could be traced back to lower self-enhancement values (power and achievement), less positive attitudes toward entrepreneurship, and differences in social norms.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)457-475
Number of pages19
JournalJournal of Career Assessment
Volume26
Issue number3
Early online date16 Jun 2017
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Aug 2018

Bibliographical note

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

Keywords

  • entrepreneurial intentions
  • entrepreneurship
  • Europe
  • self-efficacy
  • theory of human values
  • theory of planned behavior
  • values

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