Abstract

The purpose of this study was to establish the influence of entrepreneurial environmental factors on the formation of students’ entrepreneurial intention. To address and answer the research question which reads: “To what extent do entrepreneurial environmental factors in the form of innovativeness, proactivity and entrepreneurship education affect the formation of student’s entrepreneurial intentions” The conceptual model based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) was employed. The primary data were collected from a sample of 380 Mulungushi University (MU) students in Zambia using a closed-ended self-administered questionnaire. For data analysis, SPSS v.21, and STATA 14 were utilised to generate descriptive statistics. Proactivity as an entrepreneurial competency was observed to affect immediate entrepreneurial intentions only while entrepreneurship education was observed to affect both immediate and future entrepreneurial intentions. Innovativeness yielded non-statistical significance on both immediate and future entrepreneurial intentions. This study contributes to the existing body of literature by highlighting the difference between immediate and future entrepreneurial intentions and the importance of personality factors and entrepreneurship education in the formation of students’ entrepreneurial intentions. Based on the above findings, recommendations have been made regarding the revision of entrepreneurship education to stimulate entrepreneurial competencies among students.

Key words: Entrepreneurship, proactivity, innovativeness, entrepreneurial environment, entrepreneurial orientation, entrepreneurship education.