Effects of Family Background and Entrepreneurship Competition on Students’ Entrepreneurial Intention in China

Abstract

The Chinese society has paid greater attention to college students’ entrepreneurship since 2015 when colleges and universities first introduced entrepreneurship education. How to improve the entrepreneurial intention of college students and find the factors that affect the entrepreneurial intention of students are major research topics of many studies. Entrepreneurship is a kind of social activity, and the relationship between entrepreneurship and environment is essentially the relationship between people and society. Previous studies have found that environments make a great impact on students’ entrepreneurial intentions. The purpose of this study was to find out two important components in college environment and family environment, namely, the impact of participation in entrepreneurship competition and family entrepreneurship background on entrepreneurial intention of higher vocational college students. A descriptive design was used in this quantitative study. The samples were collected from 400 higher vocational students of Guangdong Polytechnic Science and Technology in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, China. The findings of this study showed that students who participated in entrepreneurship competition had better personal attitude towards entrepreneurship, higher views of social norms in entrepreneurship and stronger intention to start their own business than who did not participate. Students from families with entrepreneurial background had higher views of social norms in entrepreneurship and stronger entrepreneurial intention than those without families with entrepreneurial background. This study has crucial practical implication as it suggests that both colleges and families need to create more suitable environment to stimulate students’ entrepreneurial intention.