The Study On The Influence Of Role Models On College Students’ Entrepreneurial Intention

Entrepreneurship,as a new engine of national economic development,is an important activity to promote economic and social development.The importance of entrepreneurship,in particular,is growing in terms of job creation and economic vitality.However,according to the GEM report,Chinese Early-stage Entrepreneurial Activity index has generally shown a downward trend since 2015,which is far lower than other efficiency-driven countries.As potential entrepreneurs,college students should improve their entrepreneurial intentions and promote their active participation in entrepreneurial activities,which is the precondition for the vigorous development of entrepreneurship in China.Therefore,it is necessary to conduct an in-depth study on the influencing factors and mechanism of college students’ entrepreneurial intention.Existing research literature on entrepreneurial intention mainly focuses on its influencing factors,including environmental factors such as socio-cultural norms,economic level,entrepreneurship education and personal social network,as well as individual factors such as demographic background,personality traits and cognitive characteristics.Among environmental factors,role models are an important part of an individual’s social network.College students take entrepreneurial role models as the reference objects for their entrepreneurial behaviors,and form entrepreneurial cognition in the process of observation and imitation,and then trigger the corresponding entrepreneurial behaviors.Existing studies have confirmed the role model’s promoting effect on college students’ entrepreneurial intention,but the specific mechanism is still unclear.Among individual factors,entrepreneurial self-efficacy,as an important part of cognitive characteristics,also has a significant impact on entrepreneurial intention.The higher the entrepreneurial self-efficacy,the more can promote the improvement of entrepreneurial intention.According to social cognition theory of Bandura,the formation of individual entrepreneurial intention is closely related to external environmental factors and internal cognitive factors.Therefore,this study incorporated entrepreneurial self-efficacy as a mediating cognitive variable into the model of the effect of role models on entrepreneurial intention,thus making up the gap of the mechanism behind the chain of role models and entrepreneurial intention.In addition,existing studies have confirmed the relationship between role models and entrepreneurial intention,as well as the relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intention.However,the current literature focuses on the direct impact on entrepreneurial intention,ignoring the factors that may strengthen or hinder the relationship.In reality,there are some college students who are full of ambitions after listening to the entrepreneurial experience of role models,but have no entrepreneurial impulse after calming down.Or some college students,although full of confidence in their entrepreneurial ability,do not start their own businesses according to their high self-efficacy.The reason may be that entrepreneurship has a high risk of failure,and individuals choose to reduce their entrepreneurial willingness due to fear of the consequences of entrepreneurial failure.Therefore,this study took fear of failure as the moderating variable of the relationship between role model and entrepreneurial intention,as well as the relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intention,and tried to expand the results of this study.Based on the above research background,this paper,based on social cognition theory,constructs a partial mediation model of role models influencing college students’ entrepreneurial intention,and also investigates the moderating effect of fear of failure.In this paper,524 valid questionnaires of college students were collected from some universities in China and analyzed by using Least Square-Structural Equation Model(PLS-SEM).The empirical results show that role models have a significant positive impact on college students’ entrepreneurial intention,and entrepreneurial self-efficacy is the bridge connecting the two,which plays an important mediating role.In addition,fear of failure negatively moderates the relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and individual entrepreneurial intention.The higher fear of failure,the weaker the relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and individual entrepreneurial intention.The moderating effect of fear of failure on the relationship between role models and entrepreneurial intentions was not significant.The theoretical contributions of this study are reflected in two aspects.First,it expands the relevant researches on entrepreneurial self-efficacy,which not only verifies the influence of role models on entrepreneurial intention,but also finds that entrepreneurial self-efficacy is the mediating cognitive factor between role models and individuals’ entrepreneurial intention.So as to make up for the previous research failed to in-depth explore the role model on the mechanism of entrepreneurial intention.Secondly,it enriches the theoretical research on the fear of failure.It holds that the fear of failure inhibits the entrepreneurial intention of individuals with high entrepreneurial self-efficacy and prevents ambitious individuals from truly participating in entrepreneurial practice.This study also provides practical inspiration for policy makers and university educators to enrich the entrepreneurship education of college students and enhance their entrepreneurial intentions.