Author(s): Mohammad Imdadul Haque, Mohammad Rumzi Tausif, Sana Naseem
Females have an unfavourable position when it comes to being actively involved in the business. This unequal situation is no different for Saudi Arabia. The purpose of this study is to probe gender differences in entrepreneurial intention in Saudi Arabia. This study employs a primary survey based on the Theory of Planned Behavior to study the entrepreneurial intentions of female university students and see how it is different from their male counterparts. The study reports that there is no difference between the entrepreneurial intentions of female and male students. The study further reports that females have higher perceived behavioural control and lower attitude towards entrepreneurial intentions. Social norms do not significantly affect the formation of entrepreneurial intention for both males and females. An oil dominant country, Saudi Arabia is aggressively pushing for economic reforms to move away from oil and diversify it. It has also announced empowerment strategies for the women of the country. Improving the overall social acceptability of entrepreneurship may give females an advantage over males to contribute to the country's economic reform and growth process. The few existing studies on Saudi Arabia have not studied the differences in gender in terms of entrepreneurial intentions and their determinants. The study uses the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to explore the differences between male and female entrepreneurial intentions.