EFFECT OF PERCEIVED ACCESS TO FINANCE, INDIVIDUAL ENTREPRENEURIAL ORIENTATION ON STUDENTS’ ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTION IN KADUNA STATE UNIVERSITY

Abstract

Despite the insufficiency in scholarly work that examined entrepreneurial
orientation at individual level in relation to intention, the relationship between
individual dimensions of innovativeness, pro-activeness, risk-taking as well as
perceived access to finance have been studied independently, hence their
combined effect on entrepreneurial intention remain un-researched especially
among students’ in Kaduna State University. Consequently, this study examines
the relationship between perceived access to finance, individual entrepreneurial
orientation and students’ entrepreneurial intentions in Kaduna State University.
The study involved the distribution of 301 questionnaires among undergraduate
students in the Faculty of Management Science who are studying
entrepreneurship and other business related courses. Using PLS-SEM technique
for data analysis, the study findings revealed that, perceived access to finance has
no capacity of influencing entrepreneurial intentions of the students. Moreover,
the findings revealed that innovativeness and risk-taking do not play a significant
role in influencing students’ entrepreneurial intentions. However, pro-activeness
was found to be significant in influencing students’ entrepreneurial intention. It
concluded that pro-activeness is an important factor that play a significant role in
developing entrepreneurial intention which is a strong predictor of
entrepreneurial behavior. The study therefore recommends that pro-activeness
should be encouraged as it is proved to be a powerful motivator for promoting
entrepreneurship intentions of students in Kaduna state university.