The moderating role of gender on entrepreneurial intentions: A TPB perspective

Abstract

Purpose: To disentangle the ways in which social norms shape the entrepreneurial intention of university students and to analyse the moderating effect of gender that may arise.

Design/methodology/approach: We use the entrepreneurial intention model based on Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) literature and moderated by students’ gender affecting this intention. We tested some hypotheses using data from undergraduate business students in Spain and their entrepreneurial intentions.

Findings: Our results suggest that perceived behavioural control and attitudes affect the entrepreneurial intentions of university students towards entrepreneurship while subjective norms don’t. Furthermore, our findings reveal that the moderating effect of gender has a positive influence effect for women on the relationship between those subjective norms and the perceived behavioural control. However, as to some research done so far, the moderating role of gender does not seem to have a particular effect on predicting entrepreneurial intentions when moderating TPB dimensions.

Practical implications: Given the socio-economic benefits attributed to entrepreneurship results allow the design of more effective education initiatives and policy makers.

Originality/value: This research provides support to the application of the TPB allowing for a better understanding of gender differences in entrepreneurial intention.