Intention to become Entrepreneur: An Empirical Investigation

Pakistan has increasing trend of unemployment for the last 13 years which is as high as 8.3% (Express Tribune, 11 Aug 2016) compared with 6% in 2013-14 with the breakup of 5% rural and 8% urban (Bureau of Statistics). Meanwhile, enrolment in professional colleges and universities has a tremendous growth of 8.2% since 1956-57 and 10.4% since 1990-91. Professional colleges’ and universities’ output increases with the passage of time and so does the unemployment. The objective of the study is to develop some empirical framework to gauge entrepreneurial intentions.A couple of surveys, both on convenience sampling basis, were conducted to figure out entrepreneurship intentions of students. First survey consists of 106 respondents spread over three constructs; family background, education, and individual desire (Kumar et al, 2013) and all found significant (sig <0.05). Another survey consists of 250 respondents; Personal Attitude, Subjective Norm, Perceived behavioral control, and Entrepreneurial Intention (Linan & Chen, 2009). Here, personal attitude and perceived behavioral control have significant impact (sig <0.000) on entrepreneurial intention.