Author(s): Muslim El Hakim Kurniawan, Gatot Yudoko, Mursyid Hasan Basri, Aang Noviyana Umbara
Aim: This paper explores the intention and motivation of entrepreneurship students that may contribute to the decision to become an entrepreneur. This study also empirically investigates whether or not there is a significant correlation between motivation and intention to become an entrepreneur.
Methodology: Using a case study design, this study involved 86 bachelors of Entrepreneurship Program of School of Business and Management, Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB). Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire distributed online and face-to-face surveys. After the questionnaires were collected, we performed several tests using simple linear regression, multiple linear regression, path analysis, and one-way ANOVA analysis using SPSS 23.
Findings: The results indicated that ITB undergraduate students majoring in entrepreneurship have a high intention to become an entrepreneur with average of 4.5 out of 5. The four dimensions of motivation to become an entrepreneur, i.e., being-innovative, hope, altruism, and raw model motivation have a significant correlation to the intention to become an entrepreneur and the being-innovative motivation is the most significant motivation factor with determination coefficient 41.5 percent. This result shows that the students want to become entrepreneurs because they want to obtain personal growth, to be innovative by developing new ideas, to achieve a goal, to use the skill learned at the university and to obtain a prosperous life.
Limitations: The main limitation is the samples that were only from one entrepreneur school, so the results might be “school specific". In order to create insightful outcome, increasing the number of samples, taking samples from various entrepreneur school with various background, and doing such comparative study will make this study more comprehensive.
Contributions: For theoretical contributions, we have found that the intervening variable, which is access to capital, is predicted to have an indirect effect on intention to become an entrepreneur. In other words, students consider that access to capital does not become one of important considerations for them to start a business. From the nine dimensions to become entrepreneur only four dimensions (being innovative, hope, raw model, and altruism) have significant impact. We also found that there is a contradiction between altruism motivation and self-employment intention. To dig any further, future research should include qualitative interviews and/or focus group discussions so that the research may provide fruitful explanatory information.