Students' Entrepreneurial Inclination at a Malaysian Polytechnic: A Preliminary Investigation

This paper reports preliminary results of an ongoing project to examine students’ inclination towards entrepreneurship at a Malaysian polytechnic. The study used a self-administered questionnaire to explore the influence of entrepreneurial intent, perceived behavioral control, self-efficacy, perceived barriers, perceived support factors and attitude towards entrepreneurship in technical and non-technical student samples. Findings of this study revealed that non-technical students were more inclined to become entrepreneurs and drop out of their studies should business opportunities arise. They also perceived to having sufficient knowledge to become entrepreneurs as compared to their technical counterparts. Technical students indicated their unwillingness to become entrepreneurs immediately after completing their studies and perceived difficulties in getting financial aid to start a business. These preliminary results could be helpful in examining the effectiveness of the present entrepreneurship syllabus and its teaching approaches.