The study examines the entrepreneurial intentions of Spanish students using the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and finds that overall, these students display low entrepreneurial intention, primarily favoring employment in private companies. The TPB explains 27% of the variance in entrepreneurial intention, with attitudes being the strongest predictor across genders, while social legitimacy and support for entrepreneurship are notably low. The research highlights the importance of social support, particularly from family, and identifies entrepreneurial self-efficacy as a crucial factor, especially for men.

1. The XII. European Congress of Work
and Organizational Psychology
PREDICTING ENTREPRENEURIAL
INTENTION FROM THE THEORY OF
PLANNED BEHAVIOR
Juan A. Moriano, José F. Morales & Francisco J. Palací
Department of Social and Organizational Psychology
Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED)
ISTAMBUL 13th MAY 2005

2. INTRODUCTION
The study of entrepreneurship within Psychology field is characterized by:
• A lot of descriptive and partial studies  “Entrepreneurial Personality”
• These studies have received several methodological and theoretical critiques
(Baron, 2002; Gartner, 1988; Robinson, Stimpson, Huefner y Hunt, 1991;
Shane y Venkataraman, 2000; Shaver y Scott, 1991)
• Lack of solid theories that consolidate the previous studies
Therefore comes the necessity to go deeper into the study of
entrepreneurship and to apply models from Social Psychology field.
These models need to take into account not only the personal
characteristics, but also the social variables and the interaction
between them in order to explain and predict entrepreneurial behavior.

3. WORK GOALS
To analyze the applicability of a Social Psychology Model
in order to explain and predict the entrepreneurial intention
Subjective
Attitudes Self-Efficacy
Norms
Entrepreneurial
Intention

4. THEORETICAL REVIEW
ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTION
Entrepreneurship is the type of planned behavior for which intention
models are ideally suitable (Bird, 1988; Katz and Gartner, 1988)
INTENTION MODELS:
• Shapero’s Model of the “Entrepreneurial Event” (SEE) (Shapero, 1975)
• Model of Implementing Entrepreneurial Ideas (Bird, 1988)
• The Expectancy Theory Model (Vesalainen and Pihkala, 1999)
• The Utility Maximization Model of Career Choice (Douglas, 2002)
• Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1991)

5. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1991)
Attitude
Subjectiv
e Norm
Intention Behavior
Perceived
Behavior
al Control
Regression Coefficients Adjusted R²
Study Subjective Entrepreneurial
Attitude PBC
Norm Intention
Tkachev & Kolvereid (1999) .11* .28* .44* .45
Autio et al. (2001) .24*** .02* .36*** .30

6. METHOD
Participants
 The sample size was 2190 Spanish students
 41.1% were men and 57.9% were women
 The average age was 22 years old
 The students were mostly university students
(63.3%) and technical college students (26.8%)
 Most of the participants were unemployed and
dedicated only to their studies (84.5%)

7. METHOD
Measures
 Personal data: Gender, age, level of education and work situation
 Entrepreneurial intention
a) Direct measure
What is your career intention? (in a scale from 1 to 10)
a) Start your own business or work on your own
b) Work as an employee in a private company
c) Work as a government employee
f) Indirect measure
A scale consisted of 6 items which evaluate in an indirect way the
entrepreneurial intention.
For example, “I have a specific idea for starting a new venture”

8. METHOD
Measures
 Attitudes scales
 General attitude towards Self-Employment
 Attitude funtions of Self-Employment (Grande, 2001)
 Specific attitudes towards: Achievement, Innovation, Independence,
Change, Risk and Salary (EAO, Robinson et al., 1991)
2. Subjective Norm
a) Social legitimacy of Entrepreneurship
b) Social Support
c) Entrepreneurship Support from the Educational Center
3. Perceived Behavioral Control
Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy Scale (De Noble, Jung, Ehrlich, 1999)

9. RESULTS: ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTION
• The entrepreneurial intention obtained the lowest average score.
• Only 13.5% of the participants have higher intention of working as self-employed
than as employed.
Figure 1. Career Intention
Entrepreneur
5.24
Career Intention
Government Employee
5.98
Employee in private
7.69 company
4 5 6 7 8
Note. 10-point scale ranging from 1 (not interested) to 10 (totally interested).
*** Mean differences significant at p < .001
• Differences between men and women:
a) Men: Higher entrepreneurial intention
b) Women: Higher intention to work in a private company or for the government
18.5% of the men prefer to become an entrepreneur in compare with 9.8% of the women

10. RESULTS: ATTITUDES
Correlation with
Reliability
Variable Factors Items Mean SD Entrepreneurial
Coefficients
Intention
Government
General attitude 3 .64 4.01 0.65 .170**
level
towards Self-
Employment People level 2 .51 3.56 0.72 .259**
Personal
8 .73 3.85 0.48 .229**
development
Community
Attitude funtions 3 .44 3.61 0.55 .100**
contribution
of Self-
Employment Disadvantages 6 .56 3.50 0.43 .084**
Social status 3 .57 3.10 0.76 .084**
Achievement 6 .59 4.02 0.43 .087**
Innovation 5 .56 3.76 0.52 .177**
Independence 5 .59 3.21 0.61 .154**
Specific attitudes
Risk 4 .41 3.34 0.63 .154**
Initiative 2 .32 3.48 0.79 .187**
Salary 5 .60 3.16 0.70 .068**
Note. 5-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) ** Coefficients significant at p < .01

11. RESULTS: SUBJECTIVE NORM
Correlation with
Reliability
Variable Factors Items Mean SD Entrepreneurial
Coefficients
Intention
Social legitimacy
of - 2 - 3.21 0.93 .071**
Entrepreneurship
Family 3 .75 4.16 0.81 .191**
Social Support
Friends and
3 .60 3.67 0.56 .099**
professors
Entrepreneurial Encouraging 3 .75 1.96 0.87 .165**
Support from
Educational
Centers Activities 2 .54 1.76 0.75 .062**
Note. 5-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree)
** Coefficients significant at p < .01

12. RESULTS: PERCEIVED BEHAVIORAL CONTROL
Correlation with
Reliability
Variable Factors Items Mean SD entrepreneurial
Coefficients
intention
Developing new
4 .75 3.15 0.59 .205**
products
Initiating investor
6 .75 3.39 0.53 .189**
relationships
Developing critical
4 .68 3.15 0.65 .132**
human resources
Entrepreneurial
Self-Efficacy Building an
innovative 3 .66 3.38 0.60 .191**
environment
Defining core
4 .58 3.32 0.73 .177**
porpose
Coping with
unexpected 2 .40 3.01 0.65 .179**
changes
Note. 5-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree)
** Coefficients significant at p < .01

13. STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODELING
Figure 2. Intention model from Theory of Planned Behavior
THEORY OF PLANNED BEHAVIOR (TPB) e1 AG ,65
,66 General
res1
e2 AP attitude
ID
Model Fit
,16 e3 ,80
,73
e4 ES ,13
-,17 ,27 Attitude
Indexes: RMR (.03), GFI (.93), AGFI (.91) and e5 IN ,50 funtions ,87
ATTITUDE
e6 CC
RMSEA (.04) -,27
e7 LP ,59 res2 ,88
e8 IT ,63
,16
e9 IL Specific
,32
Standardized Regression Weights ,40 attitudes
,24
res5
e10 CR ,39
Attitude: .32 *** e11 INI
res3
.27
,46
Subjective Norm: .15 * ,15
INTENTION
e13 NF ,55
Perceived Behavioral Control: .21 ** e14 CP
,60 SUBJECTIVE
NORM
,52 ,78
,17
IE IA
e15 AA ,19 ,21
,36
e16 EA
Explained Variance by the Model ,23
e23 e24
e17 DP
27% of entrepreneurial intention variance e18 IR
,67
,74
e19 RH ,58
PERCEIVED
,61 BEHAVIORAL
e20 EI CONTROL
,62
,30
e21 LC ,49
* p<.05 ** p <.01 *** p < .001 e22 TE

14. STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODELING
THEORY OF REASONED ACTION (TRA) Figure 3. Intention model from Theory of Reasoned Action
e1 AG ,66
Modelo Fit ,66 General
res1
e2 AP Attitude
Indexes: RMR (.04), GFI (.95), AGFI (.93) ,16
e3 ID ,79
,75
e4 ES ,12
and RMSEA (.04) -,27
-,17
,28 Attitude
e5 IN Funtions
,51 ,88
ATTITUDE
e6 CC
e7 LP ,59
Standardized Regression Weights ,63
res2 ,87
,33
res5
e8 IT
Attitudes: .33 *** e9 IL
,16
Specific
.18
,40 Attitude
Subjective Norm: .21 ** e10 CR ,39 ,24 INTENTION
e11 INI ,21
res3
,42 ,96
Explained Variance by the Model e13 NF ,57
IE IA
,58 SUBJECTIVE
18% of entrepreneurial intention e14 CP
,15
NORM e23 e24
variance ,36
e15 AA ,18
e16 EA
* p<.05 ** p <.01 *** p < .001

15. RESULTS: MULTIPLE-GROUP ANALYSIS
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN
Model Fit for Men Group Model Fit for Women Group
Indexes: RMR (.04), GFI (.89), AGFI (.87) y Indexes : RMR (.03), GFI (.95), AGFI (.94) y
RMSEA (.05) RMSEA (.04)
Standardized Regression Weights Standardized Regression Weights
Attitudes: .32 *** Attitudes: .34 ***
Subjective Norm: .18 * Subjective Norm: .18 **
Perceived Behavioral Control: .20 ** Perceived Behavioral Control: .14 *
Explained Variance by the Model Explained Variance by the Model
31% of entrepreneurial intention variance 24% of entrepreneurial intention variance
* p<.05 ** p <.01 *** p < .001

16. CONCLUSIONS
How is the entrepreneurial intention of Spanish students?
• The participating Spanish students have low entrepreneurial intention in general.
Their favorite occupational choice is to work in a private company.
Is the Theory of Planned Behavior able to explain entrepreneurial
intention?
• The model proposed by the TPB explains 27% of the variance in the
entrepreneurial intention.
• The alternative model proposed by the TRA explains only 18% of the variance in
the entrepreneurial intention.
• The TPB model was validated in groups of men and women. However, the
explained variance of entrepreneurial intention was bigger in men group.
What is the best predictor of entrepreneurial intention?
• Attitude is the most influential component with the biggest impact on the
entrepreneurial intention in every group (women and men)

17. CONCLUSIONS
How is the subjective norm towards entrepreneurial behavior?
• This variable shows the lowest impact on entrepreneurial intention
• There is a low social legitimacy of entrepreneurship in Spain.
• Social support has a positive effect on the entrepreneurial intention. Especially,
when this support comes from the family.
• Entrepreneurship Support from the Educational Center has a positive effect as
well. However, the participating students indicate that there is not enough
encouragement for the entrepreneurship as an occupational choice in their
educational centers.
How is the Perceived Behavioral Control?
• Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy is an important predictor of entrepreneurial intention.
• If this component is eliminated from the model then the entrepreneurial intention
explained variance goes down from 27% to 18%.
• This variable has a bigger impact on entrepreneurial intention in men group than in
women group.

18. Thank you !
¡ Muchas gracias !
Juan A. Moriano
E-mail: jamoriano@psi.uned.es