ISSN: 2222-6990
Open access
Entrepreneurship has been recognized as a catalyst for the economic growth of a nation and is becoming an important field in Malaysia. Graduates’ involvement in entrepreneurial activities is encouraged and the Malaysian government has invested millions of Ringgit in support of this agenda to increase the intention of students to be entrepreneur. However, the statistics showed that, as of 2013, only 1.7 percent of graduates were self-employed, compared to the 5 percent aspired by the government. It is therefore imperative to study the relationship between the intention and actual choice to be graduate entrepreneur. Data analysis using logistics model were carried out with a sample of 2,300 graduates (including those pursuing entrepreneur degrees). Results indicate a significant positive relationship between the graduates’ intention to become entrepreneurs and their actual choice of being entrepreneurs. However, some of the intentions are not translated into actual choice. In choosing to become an entrepreneur, having the intention alone may not be enough but it is an important prerequisite. The graduate’s actual choice to be entrepreneur is triggered by intention. Although there is a probability for intention to not being translated into actual choice, entrepreneurial intention is required to ensure the actual choice of becoming an entrepreneur. In other words, in choosing to become an entrepreneur, having the intention alone may not be enough but it is definitely an important prerequisite.
Ajzen, I. (1987). Attitudes, traits and actions: Dispositional prediction of behaviour in
personality and social psychology. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 20, 1-63.
Ajzen, I. (1991). “Theory of planned behavior”, Organizational Behavior and Human
Decisions Process, Vol. 50 No. 2, pp. 179-211.
Ajzen, I. (2005). Attitudes, personality and behavior. (2nd ed.). New York: Open University
Press.
Ajzen, I., & Fishbein, M. (1980). Understanding attitudes and predicting social behavior. New
Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Autio, E., Keeley, R. H., Klofsten, M., Parker, G. and Hay, M. (2001), “Entrepreneurial
intent among students in Scandinavia and in the USA”, Enterprise and Innovation Management Studies, Vol. 2 No. 2, pp 145-160.
Autio, E., Keeley, R. H., Klofsten, M. and Ulfdtedt, T. (1997), “Entrepreneurial intent among
students: Testing an intent model in Asia, Scandinavia, and USA”, Frontier of
Entrepreneurship Research, Vol. 17 No. 1, pp. 133-147.
Basu, A., & Virick, M. (2008). Assessing entrepreneurial intentions amongst students: A
comparative study. National Collegiate Inventors & Innovators Alliance, 1(1), 79-86.
Bird, B. (1988). Implementing entrepreneurial ideas: The case of intention. Academy of
Management Review, 13, 442-453.
Engle, R., Dimitriadi, N., Gavidia, J. V., Schlaegel, C., Delanoe, S., Alvarado, I., Wolff, B. (2010). International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research. Entrepreneurial intent: A twelve-country evaluation of Ajzen's model of planned behaviour. 16(1), 36-58.
Hattab, H. (2014). Impact of entrepreneurship education on the entrepreneurial intentions of
university students in Egypt. Journal of Entrepreneurship, 23(1), 1-18.
Ishfaq, A., Muhammad Musarrat, N., Zafar, A., Muhammad Zeeshan, S., Ahmad, U., Wasim,
R., & Naveed, A. (2010). Determinants of students’ entrepreneurial
career intentions: Evidence from business graduates. European Journal of Social Sciences,
15(2), 14-22.
Izquierdo, E., & Buelens, M. (2008, July). Competing models of entrepreneurial intentions:
The influence of self-efficacy and attitudes. Paper presented at Internationalizing Entrepreneurship Education and Training, IntEnT2008 Conference, Oxford, Ohio, USA.
Krueger, N., F. & Brazeal, D. V. (1994), “Entrepreneurial potential and potential
entrepreneurs”, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Vol 18 No. 1, pp. 91-104.
Krueger, N., F., & Carsrud, A., L. (1993). Entrepreneurial intentions: applying the theory of
planned behavior. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 5(4), 315- 330.
Krueger, N., F., Micheal, D. R. & Carsrud, A. L. (2000), “Competing models of
entrepreneurial intention”, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol 15 No 1, pp. 411-432.
Krueger, N., F., Micheal, D. R., & Carsrud, A. L. (2000). Competing models of entrepreneurial
intention. Journal of Business Venturing, 15(1), 411-432.
Kolvereid, L. (1996), “Prediction of employment status choice intentions”, Entrepreneurship
Theory and Practice, Vol. 21 No. 1, pp. 47-57.
Lee, S. H. and Wong, P. K. (2004), “An exploratory study of technopreneurial intentions: A
career anchor perspective”, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol. 19 No. 1, pp. 7–28.
Lim, H. E. (2008). Feasibility of early identification of low employability graduates in
Malaysia. Malaysian Journal of Economic Studies, 45(2), 95- 112.
Linan, F., & Chen, Y. W. (2006). Testing the entrepreneurial intention model on a two-country
sample (Document de Treball num. 06/7). Retrieved January 17, 2016, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/28117836_Testing_the_Entreprene urial_Intention_Model_on_a_Two-Country_Sample
Linan, F., & Rodri?guez-Cohard, J. C. (2015). Assessing the stability of graduates'
entrepreneurial intentions and exploring its predictive capacity. Academia Revista Latinoamericana de Administracion, 28(1), pp. 77-98.
Malaysia Department of Statistics. (2009). Siaran khas penyiasatan tenaga buruh usahawan d
In-Text Citation: (Mohamad & Shaari, 2019)
To Cite this Article: Mohamad, N., & Shaari, M. S. M. (2019). The Relationship between Intention and Actual Entrepreneurial As A Career Choice of Malaysian Graduate. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 9(6), 1140–1146.
Copyright: © 2019 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