Materialism Predicts College Students' Entrepreneurial Intention: A Serial Mediation Model

Entrepreneurship is perceived as a critical pillar for unemployment alleviation and economic growth, especially in the era of COVID-19, which highlights the importance of the entrepreneurial potential of college students. The current research focused on the role of personal values in the entrepreneurial process and investigated the relationship between materialism and entrepreneurial intention among college students. Few studies have been examined this relationship, and the underlying mechanisms were also not identified. From the perspective of personal value, we hypothesized that materialism could positively predict entrepreneurial intention. Moreover, based on McClelland's theory of need for achievement and the theory of planned behavior, a serial mediation model, with achievement motivation and entrepreneurial attitude as the mediators, was proposed. We conducted a correlational study on a sample of 1,002 Chinese university students to examine our hypotheses. They participated in an online survey and completed the measurement of entrepreneurial intention, entrepreneurial attitude, materialism, and achievement motivation. The hypothesized models were examined through serial mediation bootstrapping procedures. The results showed that materialism positively predicted college students' entrepreneurial intention, and this relationship was serially mediated through achievement motivation and entrepreneurial attitude. Materialism boosted college students' achievement motivation, which in turn was associated with a more positive entrepreneurial attitude and subsequently stronger entrepreneurial intention. The present research is the first to empirically examine this association's mechanism and establish a serial mediation involving achievement motivation and entrepreneurial attitude. For the theoretical contribution, the present research provides a more comprehensive picture of the role of personal values in entrepreneurship by complementing the effect of materialism. And regarding the practical implications, the present research implies the silver lining of materialism and points out a possible way to enhance college students' entrepreneurial intention, i.e., entrepreneurial education could take advantage of the characteristics of materialism and transform the “harmful” value into socially beneficial entrepreneurial intentions through enhancing their achievement motivation and positive attitude toward entrepreneurship.

Research on the Influence Mechanism of Agricultural Entrepreneurship: Evidence From Five Provinces in Western China

Individual entrepreneurial behaviors will be affected by their attitudes and environmental factors. Therefore, entrepreneurial attitude and entrepreneurial environment interpret the entrepreneurial behavior mechanism of farmers from the perspectives of internal and external factors. This manuscript is based on a survey data of farmers in five western provinces in China. Using structural equation modeling, the mechanism of the effects of farmers’ entrepreneurial attitudes and entrepreneurial environment on entrepreneurial behavior was analyzed empirically. The research results show that individual entrepreneurial attitudes and the external entrepreneurial environment cannot directly affect entrepreneurial behavior, and both will be through entrepreneurial self-efficacy. The sense of entrepreneurship indirectly affects entrepreneurial behavior, and entrepreneurial self-efficacy plays an intermediary role. The “entrepreneurial behavior structure” model proposed in this manuscript points out that cultivating entrepreneurial attitudes and creating an entrepreneurial environment cannot directly promote entrepreneurial behavior of farmers, but must stimulate farmers’ entrepreneurial behavior. The sense of self-efficacy provides a direction for the promotion of policy formulation and practical guidance for farmers’ entrepreneurship.

Exploring Factors Influencing Students' Entrepreneurial Intention in Vocational Colleges Based on Structural Equation Modeling: Evidence From China

With the proposal of "mass entrepreneurship, mass innovation" and other ideas, the demand for entrepreneurial talent in China is increasing, but the supply of entrepreneurial talent is far insufficient. Consistent with theory of social cognition and planned behavior, this study outlines a conceptual model including entrepreneurial intention (EI), emotional competency (EC), entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE), entrepreneurial attitude (EA), entrepreneurial education (EE), and subjective norms (SN). A structural equation model was applied through a questionnaire survey of 382 vocational college students in Jiangxi province to test the relationship between the constructs in the model. The results show that, firstly, EA, EE, ESE, and EC have positive effects on EI, while the positive effect of SN on EI is not supported. Secondly, a mediating role is played by ESE and EA in the association between EI and EE. Thirdly, ESE and EA play mediating roles in the relationship between EI and EC. Some implications of EI for schools and students were discussed.

How to Use Artificial Intelligence to Improve Entrepreneurial Attitude in Business Simulation Games: Implications From a Quasi-Experiment

Business simulation games (BSGs) have been widely used in entrepreneurship education with positive effects. However, there are still some deficiencies in the BSGs, such as limited guidance, low uncertainty and limited simulation environment, which make it impossible to exert the maximum effect. Artificial intelligence (AI) can solve the above shortcomings. The combination of AI and BSGs is the possible development direction of BSGs. But how to effectively combine BSGs with AI is still an open question. Using a quasi-experimental design, this study uses fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to analyze how participants' entrepreneurial attitude changes in BSGs. The results show that BSGs can effectively improve entrepreneurial attitude, and there are four types of promotion configurations. These four configurations consist of five antecedent conditions. According to the above conclusions, AI can improve entrepreneurial attitude in BSGs in various ways, such as simulating competitors, providing targeted feedback for failures, and improving game experience. The contribution of this paper is to highlight the possibility of combining AI with BSGs, and to provide suggestions on how AI can intervene in BSGs.

Predictors of Entrepreneurship Intention Among Students in Vocational Colleges: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

The purpose of this work is to investigate the major drivers behind the entrepreneurial intention (EI) of students from higher vocational colleges in China. Total 424 respondents participated in the survey questionnaire that measured their self-reported responses to five constructs (EI, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, emotional competencies, subjective norms, and entrepreneurial attitude). In addition to this, the equation modeling technique was used to perform the data analysis. The study results highlighted that both entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial attitudes serve as significant predictors of EI. Moreover, the entrepreneurial attitude was found to be a significant mediator of the EI and emotional competencies. Finally, a model invariance was established across the female and male student samples. As a result, this study has put forward some implications regarding the entrepreneurship education of the higher vocational students in China.

Entrepreneurial Psychological Quality and Quality Cultivation of College Students in the Higher Education and Moral Education Perspectives

The present work aims to explore the psychological quality and quality of college students' entrepreneurship under higher education and moral education. First, relationships among entrepreneurial traits, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, entrepreneurial alertness, and entrepreneurial attitude are analyzed through questionnaire surveys and statistics. Second, the role of college students' entrepreneurial attitudes in improving entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial alertness is discussed. Eventually, the relationship mechanism of entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial alertness in entrepreneurial traits and entrepreneurial attitude is explored. Results demonstrate: (1) the mediating effect through the entrepreneurial self-efficacy reaches 36.91%; (2) the mediating effect through entrepreneurial alertness accounts for 38.72%; (3) the mediating effect through entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial alertness reaches 9.15%. Therefore, the entrepreneurial traits of college students affect their entrepreneurial attitude through two intermediary paths: entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial alertness. Data comparison suggests that the entrepreneurial traits of college students are significantly positively correlated to entrepreneurial attitudes; the entrepreneurial self-efficacy of college students is significantly positively correlated to entrepreneurial attitude; the entrepreneurial alertness of college students is significantly positively correlated to entrepreneurial attitudes. College students' entrepreneurial self-efficacy plays a mediating role in the relationship between entrepreneurial traits and entrepreneurial attitude, and college students' entrepreneurial alertness plays a mediating role in the relationship between entrepreneurial traits and entrepreneurial attitude.

Research on the Effects of Entrepreneurial Education and Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy on College Students' Entrepreneurial Intention

Entrepreneurship is one of the important engines of economic development. Under the influence of policy encouragement and economic situation, college students have become the emerging entrepreneurial subjects. Studying the factors influencing their willingness to innovate is conducive to improving the entrepreneurial status and performance. From the perspective of planned behavior theory, this paper analyzes the effects of college students' entrepreneurship education and self-efficacy on their entrepreneurial intention. Using a sample of 327 college students in China, we test the hypotheses, and get some results. Firstly, college students' entrepreneurial education has a significant positive effect on their entrepreneurial intention, but has no obvious effect on the entrepreneurial attitude. Secondly, college students' entrepreneurial self-efficacy has a significant positive effect on the entrepreneurial attitude and entrepreneurial intention, and the entrepreneurial attitude plays a partial intermediary role in the relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intention.