DETERMINANTS OF ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTION AMONG ACADEMICIANS IN TURKEY

Abstract

Recently, the academic entrepreneurship has begun to get more of the policy-makers and researchers’ attention. There have been many questions about how different personality traits, family, friends, and business environment factors shape the intention of the academicians to create spinoffs. However, the entrepreneurship phenomenon has been analyzed generally. The impact of specific factors on academic entrepreneurship intention remains slightly addressed. By taking Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) as a basis, this study proposes a comprehensive model which assesses factors influencing academician’s entrepreneurship intentions. In the proposed model there are four independent variables and three dependent variables. Independent variables are creativity, perceived utility, business environment, and subjective norms. On the other side, dependent variables are attitude, perceived control, and intention. In this empirical study, quantitative research techniques were applied. In this study, self-administrated Likert type online survey was administered and necessary data was collected from 180 academicians. All responses were collected from volunteer participants in the academic field in Turkey. The study model was analyzed with the help of confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling techniques. Findings of this study are as follows. The entrepreneurial attitude is positively influenced by perceived utility, while the perceived control is positively influenced by business environment. However, creativity has not been found to influence the academician’s attitude toward entrepreneurship. Subjective norm has not been found to influence entrepreneurial intention. Entrepreneurial attitude and behavioral control have been found to positively influence academician’s entrepreneurship intentions. Findings of this study not only contributes to the relevant literature, but also provides important insights to policy makers to foster the entrepreneurship activities within academia.