A Model Of Entrepreneurial Intentions: Mediating Role Of Broader Forms Of Self-efficacy And Specific Self-efficacy

Endeavors to foreground the intervening variables contributing in the relationship between proactive personality and entrepreneurial intentions are still infancy.The significant role of entrepreneurs in job creation,innovation,employment,poverty alleviation,economic growth,and sustained development cannot be neglected.Globally,universities are trying to produce entrepreneurs hence,the inquiry of what spurs students to engage in entrepreneurial activities is widely noticed in the domain of entrepreneurship.Therefore,the main purpose of the thesis is to examine the role of proactive personality in establishing students' entrepreneurial intentions through the mediating role of both entrepreneurial self-efficacy and self-efficacy.Overall,this study thrives in proceeding the existing understanding on the notion of the entrepreneurial intentions of university students by empirically testing the predecessors of the entrepreneurial intentions.This study mainly relies on predicting and enlarging the theory on entrepreneurial intentions by explaining the interplay among the ten studied variables.This study measures direct and indirect influence of exogenous variables(proactive personality,learning selfefficacy,creative self-efficacy,leadership self-efficacy and entrepreneurial self-efficacy)on the endogenous variable(entrepreneurial intentions)in the context of university students in Pakistan.This research investigates the parallel mediation between proactive personality and entrepreneurial self-efficacy via broader self-efficacy(creative self-efficacy,learning selfefficacy,and leadership self-efficacy).Further,it examines the role of mediators in form of series between proactive personality and entrepreneurial intentions via broader self-efficacy and specific self-efficacy(entrepreneurial self-efficacy).Additionally,the study measures the moderating role of innovativeness,formal network,and informal network in the relationship between proactive personality and entrepreneurial intentions.The current study contributes in the extant research in the domain of entrepreneurship by including such kind of comprehensive mediation and moderation analysis.Indeed,this dissertation pursues to outspread what is known regarding entrepreneurial intentions by underpinning the perspective of social cognitive theory,theory of planned behaviour,and Shapero's entrepreneurial event model,which emphasize that narrow specific self-efficacy beliefs such as entrepreneurial self-efficacy are generated from broader,less specific self-efficacy belief.The study attempts to give practical evidence to the aforesaid theories in context of Pakistani university students.The present study employed a quantitative methodology through using self-administered survey instrument.Out of 1000 questionnaires,747 questionnaires were received back from the students in private universities of Punjab(in the cities of Lahore,Faisalabad,and Gujranwala),Pakistan.A total of 700 questionnaires were explicitly retained for analysis after reducing unengaged responses and missing values thereby with an actual response rate of 70.0%.The data was obtained using cluster sampling technique(multi-stage sampling).Cluster sampling is used because it is cost efficient and it has capacity to incorporate the geographical dispersed area of the study.After collecting the data from respondents,a mixture of both techniques inferential and descriptive statistics was deployed for the purpose of analyzing the data.To check the data adequacy and normality,two statistical tests such as,multicollinearity and normality tests were performed.To test the conceptual model,the partial least squares(PLS)technique was employed through Smart PLS 2.0 M3 software.Smart PLS analysis was applied for measurement and structural modelling.Measurement model was deployed to confirm validity and reliability of studied latent variables of the present model.The structural model was deployed by using Smart PLS structure equation modelling technique to test,predict and calculate cause and effect relationship simultaneously.Furthermore,Smart PLS analysis also presented the algorithm and bootstrapping,mediating and moderating calculations of understudied latent variables.Indeed,structural modelling analysis is divided into three parts such as structural model for;main effects,mediating effects,and moderating effects.Regarding the direct relationships between exogenous latent variables and endogenous latent variables,results of this study implied that all hypotheses are supported except two hypotheses 1 and 13 b.Direct relation between proactive personality and entrepreneurial intentions is not supported.This reflects the need to find mediating intervening mechanism that carries the effect of independent variable on dependent variable.The causal relation between self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intentions is also not supported.With respect to mediation,it is found that creative self-efficacy,learning self-efficacy,and leadership self-efficacy are parallel mediating variables between proactive personality and entrepreneurial self-efficacy.Whereas,general self-efficacy does not mediate between proactive personality and entrepreneurial intentions.Findings indicated that three broader forms of selfefficacy and specific self-efficacy play the role of the serial mediators in the relationships between proactive personality and entrepreneurial intentions.Findings delineated that moderating effect of innovativeness,formal and informal networks on the relationships between proactive personality and entrepreneurial intentions are not supported because of their low t-values and significance level.Nevertheless,as far as the strength of the moderating effect is concerned,the present research showed a low effect size,which can be meaningful under extreme moderating conditions.Briefly,findings exhibited the significant evident for the theoretical model elucidated in the present research.The study identified the broader and specific self-efficacy believes as strong predictors of entrepreneurial intentions by empirically testing the direct and indirect relationships.Further,discussion and implications are explicated.The dissertation has validation for a conceptual framework to trigger the future research and build more theories on university students.Thereby,comprehend how individual's personality traits and broader self-efficacy believes may contribute pragmatically in developing successful future entrepreneurs.The research carries the important implications for the university policy makers in Pakistan to improvise competencybased curriculum.The academic practitioners should design course modules in a way that matches the need to become skillful entrepreneurs and encourage or promote them to select entrepreneurial career in future.The study has four main innovative points,which are mentioned here as follows:Firstly,though sufficient scholarly work is offered which have strived to expose the main factors and reasons for contributing in developing one's entrepreneurial intentions,but the current study is an important research that explores the complicated underlying mechanism in the relationship between proactive personality and entrepreneurial intentions of Pakistani university students.Whereas,other researchers in the domain of entrepreneurship have mainly studied the direct relationship between individual personality traits and entrepreneurial intention.Secondly,this study departs from the existing literature by incorporating the mediatory role of both broader forms of self-efficacy and specific self-efficacy in the relationship between proactive personality and entrepreneurial intention.This research adds to the theoretical knowledge on entrepreneurial self-efficacy in persuading one's entrepreneurial intentions.Thirdly,the dissertation extends the stated confirmed paths by presenting parallel mediation(three forms of broader self-efficacy are mediators between proactive personality and entrepreneurial self-efficacy relationship)and serial mediation(three forms of broader selfefficacy and specific self-efficacy are mediators between proactive personality and entrepreneurial intentions).Fourthly,this thesis involves personality factors(proactive personality and innovativeness)with contextual factors(formal and informal networks)to explore the determinants of students' entrepreneurial intentions.Combining individual personality traits and self-efficacy believes with contextual factors to study one's entrepreneurial intentions into one research model is an innovative notion and embark the more consolidated and comprehensive view of study.Fifth,the present study offers a robust solution to the problem of unemployment,economic crises and subsequent social crimes by providing the predecessors of entrepreneurial intentions.This research model has strong predictive ability to determine one's entrepreneurial intentions.