ABSTRACT
The basic objective of this study was to find out the entrepreneurial intention of undergraduate agricultural students in Ethiopia taking Jimma University college of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine as a study area. Descriptive and inferential design was employed in the study. The stratified sampling techniques were applied to select respondents and in order to collect data, pretest self-administered questionnaires were distributed to 212 participants. Out of the total participants’ from ten (10) different departments all 88.2% (n=187) of the students’ returned the entrepreneurial intention questionnaire. Both qualitative and quantitative data analysis techniques mainly descriptive analysis using computed mean used while for inferential statistics Spearman correlation were employed. The study found that the entrepreneurial intention of under graduating agricultural students is high in the sense that they prefer to become self-employed and had strong desire and were certain to pursue entrepreneurial career. Related to the attitude to risk, majority of respondents were ready to assume risk while pursuing entrepreneurial career. However, the study result showed that availability of infrastructure, premises and utility was not satisfactorily available to be self-employed. In addition according to the finding, it was somewhat difficult to obtain startup capital. The major causes for the shortage of startup capital were requirement of collateral followed by high interest rate. Majority of respondents somewhat had positive attitudes on simplicity of the required legal procedure to obtain license and on availability of sufficient subsidies for establishing entrepreneurial venture. Students’ attitude towards the support of family and friend was positive, which is good opportunity for the students’ intention to become self-employed. Undergraduate agricultural students living in rural areas have slightly greater intention to become an entrepreneur. Further, Spearman correlation analysis revealed that moderate positive relationship exists between independent variables of desire to start own business, certainty of startup own business, willingness to assume risk and over all entrepreneurial intention whereas the relationship between availability of infrastructure, utility as well as provision of premise and entrepreneurial intention was weakly correlated.
Key words: Entrepreneurial intention, entrepreneurial career, undergraduate agricultural students, Jimma University.
In many countries, entrepreneurship is considered as a key to the ever growing problem of unemployment among graduates from educational institution. However, according to a study this career choice is not privileged by younger people who observe entrepreneurship as their second or last choice of career option due to various reasons (Hem, 2013).
In another research, the environmental factors such as social and economic can influence the intention to establish self-owned business (Tim et al., 1999) cited by Golo (2013). There are individual factors, family and friend’s support as well as access to credit, political and economic condition of a nation affects an individual’s intentions to become an entrepreneur. A study showed that startup capital are also an obstacle for business startups, especially for young people, as youth have less assets and savings available (Anne, 2014).These factors can affects entrepreneurial intention of person.
A report from World Bank 2016 indicates that 39% of Ethiopian population is below poverty line. When this situation continues in the same way both in urban and rural areas affects the basic needs of people, results low or inadequate level of income as well as creates inequality among citizens and may affect negatively the stability of the country.
In order to address this situation, the country’s main aim of the strategy is promoting the development of entrepreneurship which is one option of the remedy for the problem of unemployment through the establishment of micro and small enterprises as a result the enterprises contribute a lot in poverty reduction.
In Ethiopia, Entrepreneurship is linked with establishment of micro and small enterprises and in order to achieve this objective currently policy on micro and small enterprises in the country was formulated and implemented to promote entrepreneurship development. Micro and small enterprises operation enhance per capital income and output, and is stimulant for enhancing indigenous entrepreneurship, it also creates employment opportunities.
Currently in Ethiopian higher education institutions, entrepreneurship and small business management course has been in the department curriculum which enhance entrepreneurship practice, and the number of graduating students in various discipline increases from time to time where government organization cannot hire all of them. It is not exceptional also in the case of agricultural under graduating students. Under-graduating agricultural students are also studying entrepreneurship and small business management courses that enable individual to think entrepreneurship is one of the employment options.
The students prefer entrepreneurship as their career option when they have entrepreneurial intention. This is due to the fact that an entrepreneurial intention is a primary step to pursue entrepreneurial career. In previous studies, factors which affect entrepreneurial intention has mostly been studied in higher education institute considering different fields together in Ethiopian context and the finding leads to have mixed result of entrepreneurial intention. Little is known in the case of agricultural under graduating students.
Thus, this study aimed to fill this gap so that the finding broaden our insights about entrepreneurial intention of the undergraduate agricultural students in Ethiopia. According to this study, the major objective is to determine their entrepreneurial intention among agricultural under graduating students in a sense to determine the extent of entrepreneurial intention. Moreover, the study also aims to explore differences that exist in entrepreneurial intention with respect to residential status, and to know the relationship between some selected independent variable and entrepreneurial intention of agricultural students.
The general objective of the study was to determine the extent of the entrepreneurial intention of undergraduate agricultural students in Ethiopia. To assess the extent of the entrepreneurial intention of undergraduate final year agricultural students’ of the college of agriculture and veterinary medicine at Jimma University, the study aims to;
(1) To determine the perceived barriers to pursue entrepreneurial career related to access of credit;
(2) To identify the perceived support of family and friends as well as impact of government policy to pursue entrepreneurial career;
(3) To compare entrepreneurial intention of students considering their residential status;
(4) To explore the association exist between under graduating students’ entrepreneurial intention and factors that determine their intention.
Scope of the study
The study was undertaken at Jimma University College of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, aimed at assessing entrepreneurial intention of final year undergraduate agricultural students as the respondents considering 10 (ten) departments in 2016. The study majorly focused to explore the extent of entrepreneurial intention, and to explore the relationship that exist between entrepreneurial intentions’ with selected independent variables. It was considered that the attitude towards the entrepreneurial intention of agricultural students will be generally applicable to other Universities in Ethiopia.
An individual will venture out and initiate entrepreneurial behaviors when the intention is high with respect to a specific opportunity (Sing, 2014) this indicates that entrepreneurial process starts from development of entrepreneurial intentions. Entrepreneurial process starts from development of intention noted by John et al. (2012).
Entrepreneurial intent refers to the intention of individual to start a new business (Abubakar et al., 2014). This means that entrepreneurial career emerge from personal aspiration of business owners who prefer the autonomy of ownership rather than seeking jobs. Entrepreneurs are individuals who are able to overcome the challenges of growth-oriented ventures while entrepreneurship is a function that creates new jobs, and it also contributes to improving the overall living standards of people and increases the country's competitiveness.
In developing and non-developing countries, entrepreneurship is considered as a means for enhancing economic development through creating jobs. In many universities and colleges, courses on the entrepreneurship and small business management have been planned and implemented and still it is offered in various programs due to the recognition of promoting entrepreneurship development which is more important for the creation of self-employment opportunities and reductions of unemployment as well as contributes a lot in poverty reduction.
Entrepreneurship education improves motivation towards being entrepreneurial by inspiring students’ personal attraction towards entrepreneurship and perceived behavioral control (Dugasa, 2012) cited by Mekonnin (2015). Among many models used to assess the entrepreneurial intention is Shapero (1982) which includes namely perceived desirability which refers to the attractiveness to start up a business (that is, lack of personal desire) (Kruger,1993) cited by Zoi (2013). Perceived feasibility refers to the degree an individual feels that he/she is capable in starting a business (for example, lack of finance), and individual’s willingness to act on decisions (that is, to actually start up) (Holden, 2008) cited in Zahria et al. 2013. In another study, the finding of Lee (1996) indicated that experience in the course of business may create higher profit as by cited Buba et al. 2015.
Thus, for the purpose of this study Shapero (1982) cited by Zoi (2013) model was employed, and other independent variables were considered from empirical study explained in the following topics.
Factors that affect entrepreneurial intention
Access to credit
Entrepreneurs can find financial assistance from commercial banks and microfinance institutions to fund their own business. In Ethiopia, micro finance institutions are established to deliver credit and deposit services in urban, semi urban and rural areas where their major objective is to address unemployment problem targeting
specific groups particularly the poor.
Teshome (2014) finding revealed that the most barrier factors for students to pursue entrepreneurial career was shortage of initial capital and fear of the risk involved in private higher education students in Ethiopia. However, the study does not include the public university but rather involves various students in the study from various programs.
Firms in Ethiopia are much more likely to be fully credit constrained than firms elsewhere in the world’ (World Bank, 2015). On investigating formal and informal institutions’ lending policies and access to credit in Kenya, the availability of credit facilities to small scale enterprises is one of the incentives that have been proposed for stimulating its growth and the realization of its potential contribution to the economy (Rosemary, 2001). Based on the findings, access of credit affects entrepreneurial career of individual.
Family and friend support
Entrepreneurial network relationship such as family relationship and friendship network are important in order to establish entrepreneurial venture.
In the study of factors that has impact on entrepreneurial intention of tertiary students in Ghana, Richard et al. (2015) noted that family and friend support computed mean score was 3.49 and 3.15 respectively this indicates that perceived support were moderate that affects entrepreneurial intention of polytechnic students.
A study carried out on the assessment of entrepreneurial intention of undergraduate students considering business and economics discipline at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, indicated that there was significant relationship between the entrepreneurial intention and perceived support of family including friends, and the major barriers to pursue entrepreneurial career was access of finance (Asfaw, 2015).
Some study showed that family with business background in most cases encourage and motivate other family members to be involved in entrepreneurial venture (Stephens et al., 2006) as cited by Galina et al (2015) which means they are considered as a role model by the individual to pursue entrepreneurial career. Seyed et al. (2012) noted that agricultural students have positive attitude toward social support of entrepreneurship
Government policy and environmental factors
The ease or simplicity of establishing own business in terms of procedures and requirements to obtain license can influence pursuing entrepreneurial career. Walid and Loay (2014) noted that the government role in creating a perceived climate and favorable policies encourages entrepreneurship to start business.
Thus, this research tried to assess the view of students’ on overall legal and regulatory environments, subsidies available for establishing entrepreneurial venture and political condition in Ethiopian context. Availability of premises, infrastructure and utility factors can also affect entrepreneurial career where the founders cannot control them.
Specht (1993) noted that infrastructure development was one factor that influences the startup intention among other identified five main environmental factors cited by Tim et al. (1999). For the purpose of this study, this variable was considered as an overall environmental factor.
Residential status
Under the study of comparative analysis of rural and urban start-up entrepreneurs reasons for apparent differences in entrepreneurship rates in rural and urban areas, the study revealed that the rate of rural entrepreneurship is lower than the rate of urban entrepreneurship in the sense that the rate of decisions to start a business is higher in urban areas than rural areas (Joo, 2011). On the other hand, in an investigation of impact of contextual factors on entrepreneurial intention of final year students in India, the result revealed that a respondent from urban area is more likely to opt for entrepreneurial career (Hem, 2013). However, the study did not consider agricultural students where this study tries to identify entrepreneurial intention with respect to residential status.
The relationship between various factors and entrepreneurial intention
By the assessing the attitudes of private higher education students towards entrepreneurship in Ethiopia, Teshome (2014) found that majority of students wanted to work with company and obtain a professional experience immediately after completion of their study believing they will have the business skills and knowledge required for business ownership.
In another study of exploring the extent of entrepreneurial intention among the final year students of open university of Malaysia. Leoong (2008) indicated that students intention to pursue entrepreneurial career is slightly above the neutral value where most of them were from undergraduate program.
The study also found that students were not sure on which career path to take on, either to work for someone else or work independently. Another study on assessment of entrepreneurial intention of undergraduate students: impacts of attitudes, revealed that there is significant relationship between the entrepreneur intention and entrepreneurial attitude was 0.015 which is weak positive association, and the relationship between entrepreneurial intention and perceived desirability is negative (Abubakar et al., 2014).
Another study on entrepreneurial intention of agricultural students in Tehran, showed that about a half of the respondents had medium entrepreneurial intention (Mahtab, 2015). Nematoollah et al. (2012) study on entrepreneurial intention of agricultural students in Iran indicated that students have positive attitude toward social support (family, relative and friends) of entrepreneurship. To put it in a nut shell, majority of the empirical study focus on investigating entrepreneurial intention which covers mixed discipline, and little study was conducted on entrepreneurial intention of undergraduate agricultural students of higher education students where this study aimed to investigate in the Ethiopian context. Based on the previous empirical study which focused on entrepreneurial intention, the following independent variables were identified to assess entrepreneurial intention among under graduating students in Ethiopia. Analysis was used to measure the entrepreneurial intentions of students based on selected determinants used by several authors in other empirical studies explained in literature review section (Figure 1).
The type of research followed for this study was descriptive in nature, and included analytical study where inferential design was employed. The major objective of the study was to assess the extent of the under graduating agricultural students entrepreneurial intention which was carried out at Jimma University College of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine. The preliminary study showed that the total population was 449 students (College’s registrar Office). The study area, College of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine was selected purposively due to the fact that currently the researcher is permanent worker at the university in academic jobs and engaged in research activities. The study employed both primary and secondary data. The primary data was collected through distributions of a pretest structured questionnaire from the selected participants. Secondary data also from previously conducted research and various books, College of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine registrar office report and various published journals support analysis of data with conceptual and empirical evidences. To obtain high response rate, the author participated in data collection.
Sample size
For the purpose of this study, Slovin’s sampling formula (Guilford and Flruchter, 1973) cited by Adie et al (2011) was employed to determine the study size. The computation stated below provides 212(47%) of total population samples.
Where N= Total number of students’ α = 0.05 (margin of error) For the purpose of this study, stratified random sampling was preferred as it gave a sample that was a representative of the population from the ten departments. The individual sample representatives were taken into the respondent based on convenience sampling. After administering the pretest structured questionnaire, the response rate was 187(88.2%), and all returned questionnaire were valid for the analysis and interpretation.
Data analysis
Both quantitative and qualitative data analysis employed for the study used statistical package for the social sciences (version16). The data was collected using self-administered structured questionnaire which was analyzed by computing mean scores, and percentages. A mean score of less than 2.60 indicates a negative attitude (strongly disagree and disagree), a score of equal to 2.60 or less than 3.40 indicates a neutral attitude (moderate) and a mean score greater than 3.40 indicates positive attitude (strongly agree and agree) (Hussain et al., 2014). Spearman correlation was also employed to determine the relationship between variables where the association of the correlation is guided using absolute value of rs 0.00-0.19 is very weak, 0.20-0.39 is weak, 0.40-0.59 moderate, 0.60-0.79 strong and 0.80-1 very strong.
Reliability test
Table 1 shows reliability analysis. Cronbach’s alpha method was used to determine reliability of the scales which is a measure of internal consistency, that is, how closely related a set of items are as a group and when the result is generally above 0.5 (or 50%), is considered to be reliable (Peighambari, 2007) as cited by Mohammed and Abdulahi (2011). Analysis revealed that for all variables, the scale is reliable by 74.95%. Other items included in the questionnaire consists of variables related to the shortage of capital to rank on suggested problems that may impede to establish entrepreneurial venture and measurement of the rate of entrepreneurial intention related to residential status which are separately single measure factors, and categorized under different title but in order to address the problem of reliability pretest questionnaire was employed.
Demographic characteristic of respondents
The result of the analysis of participants’ demographic characteristics is shown in Table 2. Out of the 212 distributed questionnaires, 187 (88.2%) were finalized and returned. Entrepreneurial intention questionnaire were valid for the analysis. The major respondents were male which constitute 118 (63.1%), and 69 (36.9%) females participated in the study. Female students in all programs were few in number related to the number of male students. Most of the respondents aged between21 to 25 comprise 164 (87.7%). In addition, 128 (68.5%) of participants were from either semi urban or rural area while 59 (31.5%) were from Urban area.
The majority of respondents were from agricultural economics, and plant science each constitute 28 (15%) followed by natural resource management which were 25 (13.4%). Whereas, agribusiness and value chain management were 22 (11.7%). Rural development and horticulture each accounts for 17 (9.1%) while animal science and veterinary medicine each constitute 14 (7.5%), and the remaining 7(3.7%) were sugarcane Agronomy students.
The finding revealed that significant number of 117 (62.5%) respondent sometimes were involved, and completely engaged in money earning activities before joining the university which indicates they had prior experience in business that is they were self-employed or work in family business. Related to the experience of respondent’s family exposure in business, the study found that 122 (65.2%) were engaged in the course of business whereas 65 (34.8) were not self-employed.
Entrepreneurial intention
Table 3 indicates the results of overall entrepreneurial intention of students related to their desire, certainty and extent of effort on establishing own business. By measuring their view on a five point likert scale, there were four items that measured respondents view on their preference to pursue entrepreneurial career, desire and certainty of becoming entrepreneur, the study revealed that the mean score for all variables was above 3.5 which indicates participants’ had positive attitude on entrepreneurial career in the sense that undergraduate agricultural students entrepreneurial intention is high which indicates after completion of their study students prefer to be self-employed.
Moreover, they had strong desire to pursue entrepreneurial career and were certain to start up their own business. Table 3 also shows the result of attitude to risk and overall environment. Attitude to risk was measured, and the study result showed that the mean score was above 3.5 representing majority of respondents who are ready to assume moderate risk while pursuing entrepreneurial career which is one of the qualities of successful entrepreneur. Regarding the overall convenient of the environment related to availability of infrastructure, premise and utility to pursue entrepreneurial career, the mean score was 3.08 that means respondents were not well satisfied with the existing availability of infrastructure, premise and utility that affects entrepreneurial intention.
Opinion of respondents’ on support given by institutions as well as family and friends
The study also examined factors influencing decision to pursue entrepreneurial career related to financial support services in relation to start own business in addition support given by government as well as family and friends. The result is summarized in Table 4
The finding showed that majority of the respondents 147 (78.6%) perception was somewhat and completely difficult to obtain startup capital that affects one becoming an entrepreneur, and 145 (77.5%) of participants replied that obtaining adequate finance to run business would be difficult which represents the ones who agree and disagree on the statement. According to the respondents, It can be concluded that the major obstacle would be obtaining the required adequate fund to establish and run own business.
Regarding legal procedure and availability of sufficient subsidy, the study also found that majority of respondents somewhat had positive attitudes which constitute 78 (41.7%) and 72 (38.5%) respectively indicating that they were not well satisfied on the procedure of legal procedure for obtaining license and support given by the government. But on contrary, most of the respondents (87 (46.5%)) were well satisfied and believed that at the moment political condition of the country is conducive to establish their own business. On measurement of support of family and friend, the result revealed that most of respondents had positive perceptions on their families and friends support while they become an entrepreneur which constitutes 156 (83.4%) and 150 (79.2%) respectively computed out of the whole participants which indicates good opportunity for the students intention to become self-employed.
Major causes of shortage of startup capital
As it is indicated in Table 5, respondents were asked to rank among the suggested problems of the cause for the shortage of capital to establish and run own business. 1= most suggested problem 2=second option 3=third suggested option 4= the least suggested problem. Rank orders of one to four (1 to 4) have been assigned to them in which 1 reflects the most series problem and 4 shows relatively the least series one.
The mean result 2.1497 indicate that the first suggested challenge were requirement of collateral-a property pledged to creditor to assure repayment of loan followed by the response of existing interest rate is high to borrow money from financial institutions. According to the reply of participants, the third suggested problem was no adequate financial institutions available in their living place that provide loan. Finally, the least series problem was due to risk of failure, financial institutions are not lending.
Entrepreneurial intention with respect to their residential area
One of the objectives of this study was to compare entrepreneurial intention with respect to residential area where result is shown in Table 6. The research outcome revealed that out of the 59 urban residents, 45 (24%) preferred to pursue entrepreneurial career while out of 86 rural residents, 63 (33.7%) of them agreed and strongly agreed to be self – employed that is percentage result is out of the total study participants whereas least proportion of respondents out of total participants 25 (13.3%) have still not decided whether to seek jobs in organization or to set up their own business. The preference of pursuing entrepreneurial career rather than seeking jobs in other organization is rated slightly higher in rural areas than urban areas.
Relationship of students’ entrepreneurial intention and factors determine their intention
The study also investigated the relationship between entrepreneurial intention and some selected independent variable using Spearman correlation. The finding revealed that there was association between entrepreneurial intention with desire to start a business in the future where spearman correlation rs= 0.454, p<0.01), and readiness of assuming moderate risk rs= 0.410, p<0.01 which is moderate positive relationship. The entrepreneurial intention and certainty of establishing own business attained also moderate positive relationship rs= 0.505, p<0.00. The relationship between entrepreneurial intention and overall convenience of environment related to availability of infrastructure, utility and availability of premise to pursue entrepreneurial career obtained weak positive correlation rs= 0.232, p=0.01. The result is presented in Table 7.
The empirical study found that the mean score above 3.5 represents participants’ had high entrepreneurial intentions to become an entrepreneur. The study to conclude that undergraduate agricultural students had positive attitude towards entrepreneurship in which it contradicts with agricultural students in Tehran were about half of the respondents had medium entrepreneurial intention (Pouratashi, 2015). This completely contradicts with the attitudes of private higher education students in Ethiopia (Teshome, 2014), were majority of students wanted to work in a company being salaried worker.
The finding of the study indicates that the mean score result above 3.5 on measurement of willingness to assume risk indicate that under graduating agricultural students did not lack the confidence to start their own business. That means students’ are ready to assume moderate risk which is one of the qualities of successful entrepreneurs. Thus, this research work finding contradicts that of Teshome 2014) finding, students do not start a business due to fear of risk on the study of assessing the attitudes of private higher education students towards entrepreneurship. The participants in this study have a positive attitude towards entrepreneurship and were motivated to be self-employed which is understood as majority of respondents had prior experience in the course of business where to some extent developed skill on managing self-owned business so that they would benefit by earning high profit. This is consistent with the finding of Lee (1996) who revealed that experience in the course of business may create higher profit cited by Buba et al (2015).
In addition, larger proportion of respondents’ family had exposure in the course of business lead to the development of entrepreneurial intention on the mind of undergraduate agricultural students’. This finding is concurrent with the finding of Stephens et al. (2006) who noted that family with business background in most cases encourage and motivate other family members to be involved in entrepreneurial venture by considering them as a role model cited by Galina et al (2015).
The study also found that overall environment of the living place of respondents in terms of availability of premises, utility and infrastructure was not satisfactory to pursue entrepreneurial career which affects the desire of undergraduate agricultural students to be self-employed which confirms the study of Specht (1993) who noted that infrastructure development was one factor that influences the startup intention cited by Tim et al. (1999).
The study result revealed that, it was somewhat difficult to obtain startup capital from financial institutions that affects one to become an entrepreneur, and the major reason was requirement of collateral which affects the capability of starting business which agreed with the finding of Rosemary (2001). Lack of finance affects willingness to act on decisions to actually establish own business cited by Zahariah et al. (2010).
Based on the finding of the research, the next outstanding challenge for the under graduating agricultural students in Ethiopia is the existing high interest rate demand being the cause of shortage of startup capital from financial institutions that can imbed entrepreneurial intention of students followed by no adequate number of financial institution and due to risk of failure respectively which means both has relatively little negative impact to promote entrepreneurship.
Undergraduate agricultural students believed that they would face some difficulties in dealing with the requirements of government regulations and procedures to obtain license, and permits as well as insufficient subsidies available for the establishing entrepreneurial venture which affects entrepreneurial career of agricultural students’ which confirms the finding of Walid and Loay (2014) who noted that procedures and requirements influence pursuing entrepreneurship career.
The highest proportion of respondents view on perceived support of family and friend was positive that confirms the finding of Seyed et al. (2012) who noted that agricultural students have positive attitude toward social support of entrepreneurship however partly contradicts the study of Richard et al. (2015) where the finding showed that perceived friend support were moderate that affects entrepreneurial intention. On the other hand, most of the students’ were well satisfied and believed that at the moment political condition of the country is conducive to establish their own business which indicates currently stability of the country is good opportunity to pursue entrepreneurial career in the context of Ethiopia.
Furthermore, the study found that the preference of pursuing entrepreneurial career rather than seeking jobs in other organization is rated slightly higher in rural areas than urban areas where the finding of this study indicate that undergraduate agricultural students from rural area have greater intentions to become an entrepreneur. The result of this study disagreed with the study finding of Joo (2011) who noted that the rate of decisions to start a business is higher in urban area than rural area.
After testing spearman correlation between the entrepreneurial intention and some selected independent variable, the empirical study revealed that moderate positive relationship exists between independent variables: desire to start own business rs= 0.454, p<0.01, certainty of startup own business rs= 0.505, p<0.01, and willingness to assume risk rs= 0.410, p<0.01.
This contradicts with the study of Abubakar et al. (2014) finding that indicates the relationship between entrepreneurial intention and perceived desirability is negative among undergraduate students and the entrepreneur intention and entrepreneurial attitude was 0.015 which is weak positive association.
Furthermore, this study indicated that the overall convenient of environment related to availability infrastructure, premise and utility to pursue entrepreneurial career is rs=0.232 p=0.01. Since the association between entrepreneurial intention and overall environment of living place of respondents was weak positive relationship, it can be conclude that government should pay special attention to improve aforementioned facilities that affects the entrepreneurial intention of students’.
Based on the finding of this research study, the study concludes that the existence of high entrepreneurial intention among final year undergraduate agricultural students in Ethiopia is certain, and has strong desire to establish their own business.
However, they put forth the necessary effort to be self-employed, and have willingness to assume moderate risk while pursuing entrepreneurial career. Students’ attitude towards the support of family and friend is positive indicating that they demand support from them since they are not reluctant to provide the required assistance to establish their own business. The key challenges that affects entrepreneurial career includes:
(1) Undergraduate agricultural students’ has difficulties in getting startup capital
(2) Having difficulty in obtaining legal license as well as the existing insufficient subsidies by the government was not satisfactory to pursue entrepreneurial career.
In addition, according to the finding, among undergraduate agricultural students’ the choice of pursuing entrepreneurial career rather than seeking jobs in other organization is rated slightly higher in rural areas than urban areas. Finally, the research result reveals that the association between the certainty, desire to be self-employed as well as willingness to assume risk with overall entrepreneurial intention is moderately positive. However, weak positive correlation was observed between the independent variable environmental factor with respect to obtaining premise, utility as well as availability of infrastructure and overall entrepreneurial intention.
The research is not sponsored by any organization leading to lack of finance and adequate time to include additional study area. Due to this reason, the author limits the study to College of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine at Jimma University. In addition, another limitation was lack of adequate empirical study finding on the measurement of entrepreneurial intention of undergraduate agricultural students in Ethiopian context.
The existing overall environment which is very essential for establishing own business is unsatisfactory to pursue entrepreneurial career. Thus, to encourage entrepreneurship practice, government needs to pay special attention to improve facilities such as infrastructure, availability of premises and utility that affects the entrepreneurial intention. There is also the need to improve the existing legislation and regulation to ease establishing entrepreneurial venture which aims to enhance entrepreneurial. Based on conclusion it is recommended that financial support service need to be flexible, and the need to reduce the cost of credit or has to be affordable and flexible requirements of collateral can be a solution to shortage of startup capital in financing entrepreneurial venture.
The author recommends for further research to consider agricultural students from other public universities which can help them to get better accuracy of the students’ feedback, and enable them to generalize the research outcome. It is better also to include the opinions of stakeholders: financial lenders, institutions that provide assistance in various ways for establishing enterprises and others. A comparative study can be undertaken to determine whether difference exist on entrepreneurial intention among various programs.
The author has not declared any conflict of interests.
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