ISSN: 2222-6990
Open access
This research work was conducted among students of Kirinyaga University. It was aimed at identifying the pull and push motivations for entrepreneurial engagement among the college students. For each category of motivations, three indicators were picked and used to gauge the level of the motivations. The target population was 1549 and after running the sampling model, a sample size of 308 was picked. Students were then stratified into homogenous groups of Department or school, the course undertaken, year of study and then semester of study (whether first or second). Simple Random sampling was then used to obtain representative samples from each of the homogenous groupings. Questionnaires were the main data collection tool and contained closed-ended and open-ended test items. Questionnaires were administered to the students through their class representatives and the filled questionnaires were picked back after an agreed time. In general, about 90% of the questionnaires were received back from the students. Of this 90%, approximately 80% were adequately and correctly filled and were used for data analysis. In order to obtain objective data for determination of variability between the genders, a test item on gender of the respondent was included. Data analysis revealed that between the pull and push motivations, the latter played a more significant role in determining student engagement in entrepreneurial activities. This is significant since it is expected that students would go into Entrepreneurship ‘willingly’ and not because of lack of a ‘better option’. Policy makers would find this research significant to inform their policy decisions in making entrepreneurial engagement among the youth an attractive option for national economic growth and development.
Bernstein, D. A. (2011) Essentials of psychology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Carter, N. M., Gartner, W. B., Shaver, K. G., and Gatewood, E. J. ( 2003) The career reasons of nascent entrepreneurs, Journal of Business Venturing 18, 13-39.
G.O.K, (2007). Kenya vision 2030. Government printer, Nairobi.
Giacomin, O., Guyot, J. L., Janssen, F., and Lohest, O. (2007) Novice creators: personal identity and push pull dynamics, CRECIS Working Paper 07/2007, Center for Research in Change, Innovation and Strategy, Louvain School of Management.
Hamilton, R. T., and and Harper, D. A. (1994) The entrepreneur in theory and practice, Journal of Economic Studies 21 (6).
Knight, F. (1921), Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Krishna, K. S. (2013) Entrepreneurial Motivation. A Case Study of Small Scale Entrepreneurs In Mekelle, Ethiopia Journal of Business Management & Social Sciences Research (JBM&SSR)
Volume 2, No.1, January
Opafunso, Z. O. (2014) Motivation as a Factor Responsible for Entrepreneurial Growth in Nigeria: A Case Study of Export Logistics Limited, Akure, Nigeria. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences MCSER Publishing, Rome-Italy Vol 5 No 4
Oxenfeldt, A. R. (1943) New Firms and Free Enterprise, Washington DC: American Council on Public Affairs.
Sarasvathy, S. D. (2004) Constructing corridors to economic primitives. Entrepreneurial opportunities as demand-side artifacts, in: J.E. Butler (Ed.), Opportunity Identification and Entrepreneurial Behavior, Information Age Publishing Inc
Shane, S., Kolvereid, L., and Westhead, P. (1991) An exploratory examination of the reasons leading to new firm formation across country and gender, Journal of Business Venturing 6.
Shapero, A., and Sokol, L. (1982), The social dimensions of Entrepreneurship, in: C. Kent, D. Sexton, and Vesper, K. H. (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Entrepreneurship, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall,
In-Text Citation: (Karanja, et al., 2018)
To Cite this Article: Karanja, P., Maingi, A., Wangui, M. N., Wanjohi, S. M., & Maina, C. (2018). Opportunity-Based versus Necessity-Based Entrepreneurship Preference for Self-Employment and Entrepreneurial Involvement among College Students: A Case Study of Kirinyaga University. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 8(1), 44–59.
Copyright: © 2018 The Author(s)
Published by Human Resource Management Academic Research Society (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode