Entrepreneurial-intention constraint model: A comparative analysis among post-graduate management students in India, Singapore and Malaysia

Although literature on entrepreneurship has increasingly focused on intention based
models, not much emphasis has been laid on understanding the combined effect of
contextual and situational factors along with support of university environment on the
formation of entrepreneurial intention among students. In an effort to make up for this
shortfall, by taking Theory of Planned Behavior as basic framework, the present study
seeks to understand the influence of three of the most important factors, viz. (a)
endogenous barriers, (b) exogenous environment, and (c) university environment and
support on the entrepreneurial intention among management students. The study sample
consisted of 1,097 students, wherein 526 students were from India, 252 from Singapore,
and 319 were from Malaysia. The results indicates that along with positive attitude and
perceived behavioral control that directly influences entrepreneurial intention, university
environment and support and exogenous environment also have an indirect but significant
impact on shaping of entrepreneurial intention among students. With this, it was
found that exogenous environment was found to have a negative relationship with both
attitude towards behavior and perceived behavioral control for all three countries.