Research On The Effect Of Individual Factors On Entrepreneurial Intentions: Intermediary Effect Of Perceived Environmental Munificence

The main purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between percevied environment at the individual level and entrepreneurial activity. Resources theory based on business studies identified the relationship between a variety of resources and enterprises, but it failed to explain why the entrepreneurial activities are different in different environments. Population ecology and resource dependency theory put the environment, resources and new businesses together. Nevertheless, such research level is a group of enterprises, rather than a business or an entrepreneur. Weberian theory and social cognitive theory linked social cognitive dimensions and personal characteristics, entrepreneurial behavior. This study focused on the mechanism between entrepreneur's personal characteristics (in terms of entrepreneurial traits and entrepreneurial education) and entrepreneurial intention, and explored the intermediary role played by environment munificence. This study obtained data through experimental research and analyzed all the data to verify theoretical models and the assumptions, and discussed the results, revealing its theoretical value and practical significance. Through the analysis the affect mechanism of individual factors on entrepreneurial intention, this paper provide advice and countermeasures for the entrepreneurs in practice. Specific research steps are from the following aspects.First of all, this paper analyzes the related basic theories deeply, resource-based view see the enterprise as "a bunch of resources", while the entrepreneur is one of the important resources, entrepreneurs own a special resources for himself, such traits will help entrepreneurs identify the market opportunities and the combination of entrepreneurial resources; Based on the individual resources, entrepreneurs put the cognitive opportunity and organizational resources into new ventures, and then produce heterogeneous outputs.Then this paper explain the meaning of the resource dependence theory, and explore its importance of research on entrepreneurship. Resource dependence theory mainly focus on the necessary resources in environment for the development of firms. As the emphasis on strategic decision-making, the position of policy-makers will be put dramatically in this theory. In particular, the perception of environmental munificence, especially affecting the new venture creation process. This study using the theory of Gestalt psychology to explore the perception of environmental munificence and how the environment affects the business decision-making and entrepreneurial behavior. Cognitive theory exploresthe relationship among entrepreneurial cognition, entrepreneurial environment, and the entrepreneurial behavior.. This paper based on cognitive theory explores how the characteristics of entrepreneurs affect perception of environmental munificence, thereby affecting the entrepreneur's decision-making and behavior. Although population ecology theory is not for the research of entrepreneurship, it has indeed made an important contribution in this field. And it is similar to resource dependence theory, it also argues that the new ventures has a little control of the environment. And the difference from resource dependence theory is that it emphasizes the determining factor in the competitive environment is the brutal competitive environment, the more intense the environment the lower the survival rate of new enterprises is. The theory shows that the entrepreneurial decision-making is influenced by the environment, especially the perception of environmental munificence have an impact on entrepreneurial intentions. Theory of Planned Behavior (Theory of Planned Behavior, TPB) can help us understand how people change their behavior patterns. It is great significant to predicting behavior of the entrepreneur by applying TPB in the field of entrepreneurship.Based on the relevant theory analysis, this paper summarizes studies on entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial characteristics, entrepreneurial education, the perception of environmental munificence and entrepreneurial intention at home and abroad, mainly including the evolution of business models, the connotation of entrepreneur characteristics and dimensions, the meaning and significance of entrepreneurship education, the meaning about perception of environmental munificence, meaning and dimensions of entrepreneurial intention research. Although previous studies have achieved some results, but there is still room for a larger study. Based on the above analysis, summarized in this paper is the study variable characteristics of entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial education, perception of environmental munificence, and entrepreneurial intention.This article based on resource-based theory, population ecology, resource dependence theory and cognitive theory builds a conceptual model which includes entrepreneurial traits, entrepreneurial education, environment munificence and entrepreneurial intention. Then focus on the studies"how individual factors affect entreprenurial intention","how entrepreneurial characteristics affect entreprenurial intention","how entrepreneurial education affecs entreprenurial intention","how individual factors affect perception of environmental munificence ","how entrepreneurial education affects perception of environmental munificence ", "how perception of environmental munificence affecs entreprenurial intention " and puts foward 17 hypothesis.In order to examine the theoretical model and theoretical hypothesis, this paper adopts experimental method and choose 131 college students to be tested. After analyzing the data by SPSS software, the results show that 15 hypothesis out of 17 are through examination. Finally, there is a discussion about the results and some suggestions for theory development and practice.Through the systemic analysis , this paper makes such conclusions:(1)entrepreneur's need achievement has positive effect on entrepreneurial desire; entrepreneur's need achievement has positive effect on entrepreneurial feasibility;entrepreneur's risk-taking has positive effect on entrepreneurial desire; entrepreneur's risk-taking has positive effect on entrepreneurial feasibility;entrepreneur's locus of control has positive effect on entrepreneurial desire;entrepreneur's locus of control has positive effect on entrepreneurial feasibility;entrepreneur's entrepreneurial education has positive effect on entrepreneurial desire;entrepreneur's education has positive effect on entrepreneurial feasibility;(2)entrepreneur's need achievement has positive effect on perception of environmental munificence ;entrepreneur's risk-taking has positive effect on perception of environmental munificence ;entrepreneur's locus of control has positive effect on perception of environmental munificence ;entrepreneur's tolerance for ambiguityhas positive effect on perception of environmental munificence ;entrepreneurial education has positive effect on perception of environmental munificence ;(3)perception of environmental munificence has positive effect on entrepreneurial desire;perception of environmental munificence has positive effect onentrepreneurial feasibility.There are three innovative points in this paper.Firstly, this paper introduces more theories of multiple fields into one conceptual model, such as Gestalt theory, cognitive theory, organizational behavior. And then explore the interaction between the variables.By introducing the theory in other areas, we are able to study problems in a new perspective and derive new discovery. For example, this paper analyzes how the entrepreneur's characteristics affect their perceptions of the environment munificence based on Gestalt psychology theory, which is different from the past. Previous scholars concerned for the environment mainly from the macro perspective, and the environment is an objective reality. However, different entrepreneurs in the same environment may have different perceptions, and thus learn from Gestalt psychology. This theory explans how the characteristics of entrepreneurs affect the subjective perception of the environment munificence, and based on resource dependence theory to explain perceived environmental munificence affect entrepreneurial intention.Secondly, the perception of environment munificence is as an intermediary variable in this paper. In previous studies, the objective existence of the environment is usually selected as an intermediary variable, but in this study, entrepreneur's perceived environmental munificence is as an intermediary variable. We believe that the objective of the environmental needs a mechanism through entrepreneurs into the perceived, because our measurements are often through entrepreneurs to access to, or derived from experimental data, which has some subjectivity, too. With entrepreneur's perceived environmental munificence as an intermediary variable will be conducive to our in-depth reveal the impact of environment on entrepreneurs.Thirdly, this paper adopted experimental methods to study entrepreneruial intention. Since the qualities of each potential entrepreneur are different, their perceptions of the external environment are different. In order to study how individual qualities and the perception of the environmental munificence affect their entrepreneurial intention, we have to control other external factors which also affect entrepreneurial intention. Therefore, in order to make the study scientific and operational, this paper adopted experimental research methods to achieve.