Transcript

452 Int. J. Entrepreneurship and Small Business, Vol. 15, No. 4, 2012

Copyright © 2012 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions: assessing gender specific differences

Andreas Strobl* Department of Strategic Management, Marketing and Tourism, University of Innsbruck, Universitätsstrasse 15, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria E-mail: [email protected] *Corresponding author

Christopher Kronenberg Department of Strategy, Marketing and Entrepreneurship, Kingston University, Kingston Hill, Kingston Upon Thames Surrey, KT2 7LB, UK E-mail: [email protected]

Mike Peters Department of Tourism Business Studies, MCI Management Center Innsbruck, Weiherburggasse 8, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract: The attitude towards entrepreneurship can strongly influence the probability of individuals to become self-employed. The mindset or attitudes of an individual to move into self-employment make up the foundation for future entrepreneurial activities. Former studies indicate differences between male and female perceptions or intentions to become entrepreneurs. This paper attempts to assess women’s entrepreneurial intentions of as well as their attitudes towards being independent and comparing them to the mail counterparts’. A survey among university students was carried out revealing that male students show more positive attitudes towards entrepreneurship and much more concrete entrepreneurial intentions.

Keywords: entrepreneurship attitude; entrepreneurial intentions; gender differences; quantitative study.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Strobl, A., Kronenberg, C. and Peters, M. (2012) ‘Entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions: assessing gender specific differences’, Int. J. Entrepreneurship and Small Business, Vol. 15, No. 4, pp.452–468.

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Biographical notes: Andreas Strobl is a Researcher at the Department of Strategic Management, Marketing and Tourism Management at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. Since 2008, he investigates entrepreneurs accessing resources in the course of his doctoral degree. Furthermore, he is part of the transnational project ClimAlpTour studying the impact of climate change on alpine tourism destinations. Further research interests are problems associated to entrepreneurship and tourism.

Christopher Kronenberg is a Lecturer of Strategy at the Department of Strategy, Marketing and Entrepreneurship at Kingston University, England. He teaches strategic management, entrepreneurship and contemporary issues in business at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. His research interests are related to small and medium-sised enterprises, focusing on growth and development as well as strategic management implementation and entrepreneurial tasks in small businesses.

Mike Peters is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Tourism Business Studies, MCI Management Center Innsbruck and an Associate Professor at the Department of Strategic Management, Marketing and Tourism Management, University of Innsbruck, Austria. He started his career with an apprenticeship in the restaurant industry and received his Doctoral degree in 2001 for his study on the internationalisation behaviour of small and medium-sized tourism businesses. Since then, his research interests focus on the processes of entrepreneurship and associated problems, such as succession planning, product development and innovation.

1 Introduction

A number of scientific contributions in social sciences attempted to model and analyse intentions positively influencing the likelihood of becoming a start-up entrepreneur: e.g., Shapero (1984) identified desirability, defined as the desire to establish a new venture, as a major trigger of entrepreneurial intentions. Additionally, the perceived feasibility of the new venture and the individuals’ propensity to act influence intentions to become an entrepreneur (Shapero, 1984). Furthermore, perceived alternatives play an important role (e.g., the reliability and attractiveness of possible offers on the job market), past experiences with own or others’ entrepreneurial activities, but also self-efficacy, an individual’s perceived capability managing certain activities, certainly have a severe impact on entrepreneurial intentions (Ajzen, 1991; Audet, 2004; Shapero and Sokol, 1982; Shapero, 1984). In this context there is a lack of investigating these constructs regarding female entrepreneurship. Female entrepreneurship investigation is a relatively young field of academic research. While research in English-speaking areas started quite early dealing with ‘female entrepreneurship’ scientifically (e.g., see Cuba et al., 1983; Bowen and Hisrich, 1986; Birley, 1989), in German-speaking areas there was hardly any expressive information and empirically secured knowledge available about the process of business foundation and the introduction and transformation of resources into successful potentials during enterprise foundations by women until the end of the 1980s (KMU Forschung Austria, 2005).

The importance of female self-employment is on the rise across many countries, however, only little research is available regarding female specific start-up and

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entrepreneurship research (Langowitz and Miniti, 2007; Baughn et al., 2006). Wanzenböck (1998) generated valuable knowledge by investigating enterprise development in Austria, also evaluating the results partially gender-specifically. Frank et al. (1999) analysed demanding and restraining factors in the foundation process and developments in Austrian foundations. However, within the scope of this study a gender-specific investigation was carried out in a very limited way. The study of Korunka et al. (2003) analysed the effect of type-forming signs like age, gender and professional status on business foundation.

This study attempts to assess gender specific differences amongst university students. In a first step a literature review derives a number of factors influencing self-employment decisions to develop a model illustrating the main causal relationships between personnel and environmental factors and the perceived image of entrepreneurship. The survey at hand aims at discussing gender specific differences regarding attitudes toward entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial intentions. The paper concludes with future research paths, as well as policy implications.

2 Literature review

The decision to become self-employed can be seen as a career decision influenced by socialisation, learning experience and the educational system and made following a value-maximising point of view (Härtel, 1995; Holling et al., 2000; Welte, 1999).

Individual interests, characteristics and capabilities, knowledge and experience, job market and employment odds, flexibility and mobility, family, friends and acquaintances, school and university influence, career guidance, the media, personal aims, social values, perceived support and threats are potential factors influencing decisions concerning the choice of employment (Audet, 2004; Härtel, 1995; Kolvereid, 1996; Korunka, et al., 2003; Peterman and Kennedy, 2003; Ussman, 1998; Welte, 1999). The image of a profession can be drawn from the configuration of the above-mentioned factors. These factors influence attitudes and intentions towards entrepreneurial ventures. Furthermore, the propensity towards risk, environmental influences, innovativeness and similar factors are of importance for entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions (Ajzen, 1991; Autio et al., 2001; Krueger, 2000; Lüthje and Franke, 2003; Shapero 1984; Shapero and Sokol, 1982; Tietz, 1995).

According to Shapero (1984) desirability, feasibility and the propensity to act constitute for intentions towards entrepreneurship. Furthermore, it is a question of possible alternatives and their credibility, as well as of previous experiences concerning entrepreneurship (working experiences, familiar successful and unsuccessful entrepreneurs).

The perceived ability to accomplish a conscious action is termed self-efficacy by Shapero (1984). Self-efficacy influences the perceived feasibility and for its part is determined by experiences and social influences (Shapero, 1984; Shapero and Sokol, 1982).

Action, requiring a certain degree of planning, is determined by the intentions to accomplish this action (Ajzen, 1991). Ajzen (1991) identifies the attitude towards behaviour, the subjective norm (social and environmental influences) and the perceived behavioural control as the main factors determining intentions. In this respect, it is all about the aptitude of personal characteristics and abilities concerning an action.

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3 Model development

The attitudes and intentions towards entrepreneurship of the students encompass two groups of variables: personal background variables and environmental variables. The relationship between attitudes and intentions is seen as reciprocal. In this respect, the attitudes towards entrepreneurship influence the entrepreneurial intentions as well as vice versa (Peters et al., 2006; Achtenhagen and Welter, 2003).

This relationship between entrepreneurial intentions and attitudes will be denoted as the ‘image of entrepreneurship’ and can be seen as an attitude including a sort of agency (entrepreneurial intention) (Allport, 1967; Antonoff, 1975; Boulding, 1968; Peters et al., 2006). The proposed model of this piece of research measures the variables attitude towards entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial intention, whereas the image of entrepreneurship is obtained merely by an interpretation of these two variables. In this sense a positive image of entrepreneurship is achieved when the respondent is prepared to cease an entrepreneurial opportunity, which in general is perceived as feasible and desirable. Entrepreneurial intention is a variable proposing activity, so the individual has to search for such entrepreneurial opportunities proactively.

It is differentiated between general and specific attitudes, whereas the latter refer directly to entrepreneurship. In this respect, the variable attitude towards entrepreneurship is constructed out of a set of questions covering the general as well as the specific attitudes. The variables influencing the attitude towards entrepreneurship also contain general and specific aspects. In this respect, innovativeness, propensity towards risk, knowledge and curiosity, attitude towards work, desire for independence, planning and organising capabilities, perceived environmental influences, perceived aids and perceived impediments also consist out of a set of questions. This approach enables the authors to measure these figures in a holistic way capturing all aspects (Davidsson, 1995). By summing up the values of the single questions (reaching from 5 for ‘I agree absolutely’ to 1 for ‘I disagree absolutely’) regarding one variable and dividing these values by the number of the questions asked key figures were derived. The answering scale was chosen so that high values (leaning towards 5) for the key figures are positive concerning entrepreneurship, while low values (leaning towards 1) are negative.

3.1 Personal background, characteristics and abilities

3.1.1 General facts

• Faculty and study: Autio et al. (2001) as well as Lüthje and Franke (2003) analysed the attitude towards self-employment at universities with a focus on management and technical studies. The present study focuses on all faculties as it would be desirable that entrepreneurs come from all disciplines. For this reason, the correlation of the faculty affiliation with attitudes and the willingness to becoming an entrepreneur was evaluated.

• Age, number of semesters studied: It is assumed that there is a connection between the career decision and study progress (number of semesters) as well as the age of students (Davidsson, 1995). Attitudes and career concepts as well as aims become more and more concrete with progress in life. Therefore, the influence of the variables progress in life and higher education upon the attitude

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towards entrepreneurship were investigated. Furthermore, it is unclear, if the pre-university education has an influence on the decision of starting an entrepreneurial venture.

• Work experience: Many students do company internships during holidays. This work experience could change peoples’ attitude towards their professional career (Davidsson, 1995). Peterman and Kennedy (2003) evaluated the influence of positive and negative work experiences and the willingness to become independent. Positive experiences raise the students’ willingness, negative experiences decrease the willingness to become independent. A study of Drnovsek and Glas (2002) showed similar results. Eiser and van der Pligt (1988) argued that the environment and past experiences influence the career decision.

3.1.2 Characteristics and abilities

• Innovativeness: Innovation and creativity are often mentioned as the most important source for entrepreneurship. Several studies (Robinson et al., 1991; Ussman, 1998) see these two variables as personal characteristics for successful entrepreneurship.

• Propensity towards risks: The foundation of an enterprise is strongly connected with financial and emotional risk. Low and MacMillan (1998, p.142) mention “The list of potential pitfalls associated with starting a new venture appears to be limitless.” The willingness to take risks is therefore an essential characteristic of entrepreneurs (Lüthje and Franke, 2003; Korunka et al., 2003; Uusitalo, 2001).

• Knowledge and curiosity: According to Drucker (1985) entrepreneurship is risky because of the lack of entrepreneurial knowledge. Knowledge and know-how are possibilities to reduce economic risks, especially the start-up phase often implicates barriers – a business plan could be one possible tool to organise this first stage in the life cycle of an enterprise.

• Attitude towards work: Being independent is connected with a high amount of work rather than being employed. Uusitalo (2001) figured out that the average amount of working hours of a self-employed person is 47.8 hours per week compared to 37.7 hours of employees. Therefore, influence of the individual’s attitude towards work was investigated.

• Desire for independence: Entrepreneurs are interested in working independently and being in control of their work. Several authors and studies mention this pursuit of independency as one of the major sources for getting self-employed and starting a business (Shaver et al., 2001; Korunka et al., 2003; Lüthje and Franke, 2003).

• Planning and organising capabilities: The foundation of a business includes several activities, starting with financing the start-up, analysing market opportunities, but also more bureaucratic administration activities have to be fulfilled. Therefore, the ability to create an effective organisation and to plan processes is one essential skill for young entrepreneurs (Korunka et al., 2003; Greve and Salaff, 2003). Furthermore, entrepreneurs are responsible for the organisation as well as for their decisions.

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3.2 Environmental factors

Contrary to the model of Ajizen (1991) the present study proposes that environmental factors impact the entrepreneurial intention to start up a business. Environmental factors include several aspects: support from outside (family and friends, but also governmental support), hurdles and barriers to get self-employed, the economic situation (branch development as well as the general economic climate).

• Perceived influence of external factors: The environment and the interaction with it play an important role in our life. Our social environment plays a special role, because of its high intensity. Socialisation has a strong influence on the decision which career to pursue. Especially family, friends and relatives exert influence on our future decisions. The so-called ‘subjective factors’ (Ajzen, 1991) effect our decisions by supporting or rejecting them.

• Perceived impediments: When starting up a business the prospective entrepreneur has to overcome several barriers and hurdles. These could be bureaucratic barriers, lack of financial resources and many others more. The current study analyses the influence of perceived impediments when becoming an entrepreneur. Lüthje and Frank (2003) examined possible barriers in the start up phase of new enterprises.

• Perceived aids: Starting up a business is a complex topic and associated with risk, barriers and hurdles as discussed before. Support from different sources and in different ways can make it easier for the entrepreneur, especially in the first phase of the business. Support can occur in different ways, it can be financial, know-how but also emotional support through friends and family (Greve and Salaff, 2003). Governmental organisations also provide support in terms of entrepreneurship courses but they also provide help with searching capital providers.

• Self-employed examples: As discussed before, the environment shows strong influence on the decision to become an entrepreneur. Starting a business often is a result of witnessing a single role model among the own social surrounding (Shaver et al., 2001). Davidsson (1995) demonstrated that selfemployed role models influence the decision to become an entrepreneur, Autio et al. (2001) confirmed this correlation. Positive examples in our environment foster the own intentions while negative examples of self-employment lower the attitude towards entrepreneurship (Bygrave and Minniti, 2000).

• Macro and micro economic factors: In addition to the model-based factors, a gap analysis was carried out. This analysis should identify differences between perceived importance of factors like economic situation, support, entrepreneurial culture, education and business formation consultancy and the current situation in Austria. The perceived factors were implemented in the model, after having measured the influence of each factor on the attitude towards entrepreneurship.

• Attitude towards entrepreneurship: The attitude towards a subject influences how we see this topic. A positive attitude can help to avoid failures and makes the decision making process easier. Furthermore, the attitude influences also emotional acts. In literature, there are different terms for this action, e.g., attitude towards behaviour

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(Aijzen, 1991) or perceived desirability (Kruger and Braeal, 1994), but they usually refer to the same circumstance.

• Entrepreneurial intention: Measurement of intentions can be seen as the best existing instrument forecasting potential behaviour. Audet (2004) mentioned that the intent has a significant influence on the behaviour. Intentions change from time to time, they are dynamic and therefore measurement is not easy. Regarding to the entrepreneurial intention the literature distinguishes between short-term and long-term intentions. Davidsson (1995) and Autio et al. (2001) ask the question how solid the foundation of a business will be in five years. Lüthje and Frank (2003) analysed how likely a business start-up will be in the near future.

Figure 1 The image of entrepreneurship – model

Personnel background

General facts Characteristics and abilities

Environmental factors

Attitudes towards entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurial intentions

IMAGE of entrepreneurship

Source: Peters et al. (2006)

Figure 1 shows a general model and indicates how personnel background (including general facts, characteristics and abilities) as well as the environmental factors influence the image of entrepreneurship consisting of the attitudes towards entrepreneurship and of the entrepreneurial intentions.

In numerous further studies regarding entrepreneurial motivation mostly female as well as male entrepreneurs were analysed concerning their reasons for professional independence (e.g., Starr and Yudkin, 1996; Neuberger, 2002). Merely a very small number of investigations concentrated upon female entrepreneurs specifically. While DeTienne and Chandler (2007) investigate the role of gender in individual’s opportunity identification, Botha et al. (2006) used experiments to reveal that specific educational programmes regarding women entrepreneurship are able to increase their confidence in planning a new venture. Some studies carried out in several European countries could not reveal any image of gender on the probability of being self-employed (Grilo and Irigoyen, 2006), but other earlier work indicates that being male positively influences the probability to move into self-employment (see Blanchflower et al., 2001; Blanchflower and Meyer, 1994; Lin et al., 2000). Gupta et al. (2008) focussed on entrepreneurial intentions: they were interested in the effects of gender stereotype activation on entrepreneurial intentions and assigned business students to certain experimental conditions. The following survey therefore seeks to shed more light upon gender specific differences regarding entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions.

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4 Research design and sample description

The survey was conducted amongst students of the University of Innsbruck in January and February 2006. Assuming that attitudes and intentions become more precise when approaching the decision for a career, interviewees studying less than three semesters have been removed from the sample. After all, 431 valid1 questionnaires were collected. The sample consisted of 217 female and 214 male respondents. The questionnaire started with questions regarding the personnel background of the participants. In the main part of the survey, personnel characteristics and abilities, attitudes towards entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial intentions were tested. The participants were asked to judge the applicability of statements regarding the above stated variables. The answers were checked with control questions. The final part of the study was a ‘gap-analysis’ concerning the economic situation, support, start-up culture, education, and start-up guidance in Austria.

A first distinction between male and female students becomes clear when having a closer look at the distribution among the faculties of the University of Innsbruck. While 14.3% of the female students visit the medical faculty, 24% the natural science faculty, 29.5% the humanistic faculty, 22.6% the social sciences faculty, 7.4% the law faculty and 2.36% visit the constructional faculty, 12.6% of the male students visit the medical faculty, 23.4% the natural science faculty, 21% the humanistic faculty, 22% the social sciences faculty, 9.8% the law faculty and 11.2% visit the constructional faculty. Thus, female students are biased towards the humanities and social sciences and male students are more prone to technical studies as their female counterparts. The difference may be distorted, because psychology belongs to the natural sciences in Innsbruck. The average age of female students is 23.6 and the average age of male students is 24.5 years.

5 Results and discussion

At first it was tested if different characteristics among variables like gender, number of semesters studied, faculty visited, job experience before studying and job experience during studying lead to different ratings in the survey. Some significant differences were found regarding the above-mentioned variables. Interesting for this work are different ratings concerning gender. Differences regarding the entrepreneurial intention (0.002), attitude towards entrepreneurship (0.019), Innovativeness (0.004), propensity towards risk (0.002), knowledge and curiosity (0.007), planning and organising capabilities (0.016), perceived impediments (0.027) and education in Austria (0.035) were significant at the 5% level. Male students seem to reckon their abilities and characteristics concerning these afore mentioned factors more positively concerning entrepreneurship than females do. Figures 2 and 3 show cross-tabulations for the gender variable concerning the variables entrepreneurial intentions and attitude towards entrepreneurship. As one can see, male students show more positive attitudes towards entrepreneurship and more concrete entrepreneurial intentions.

Results from earlier studies that especially analysed the motives of women to become entrepreneurs are partly similar to those studies evaluating entrepreneurial motives but without considering the gender of the entrepreneur. According to a study of KMU Forschung Austria (2005) the main motives for females to become an entrepreneur are self-realisation (e.g., working independently, realising own ideas), personal motives (e.g.,

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flexibility in working times, compatibility of family and job) as well as family tradition. A study carried out by Moore and Buttner (1997) found similar results indicating that the main motives of becoming self-employed are personal motives and working conditions. Lee (1997) investigated female entrepreneurs in Singapore. Here the main motivating factors concern working related issues like e.g. challenging new tasks, risk and responsibility taking. Therefore, according to the literature , the main motivating factors identified most often are compatibility of job and family (Lundstrom, 1999; Caputo and Dolinsky, 1998, Marlow and Strange, 1994; Birley, 1989), independence (Sacirbey, 1998), autonomy (Kleinman, 1998), overcoming discontent with work (Babaeva and Chirikova, 1997; Oeltjen, 1992) and loss of the workplace (Sacirbey, 1998; Babaeva and Chirikova, 1997).

Figure 2 Cross-tabulation for the variables gender and entrepreneurial intentions

Source: Own illustration

Figure 3 Cross-tabulation for the variables gender and attitude towards entrepreneurship

Source: Own illustration

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Looking at the descriptive analysis, it becomes clear that most of all perceived impediments are important for the decision becoming an entrepreneur. Again females seem to assess these impediments more serious than males. 52.5% of the female students rather observe inadequate contacts and experiences as an impediment towards entrepreneurship while only 48.6% of male students feel the same. Further, gender specific differences can be explored when examining future aims of the students. The majority of both groups aim at self-realisation whereby this aim is a lot stronger among female (64.1%) students compared to their male (53.7%) counterparts. The most astonishing difference concerning future aims becomes apparent when looking at the aims on rank two for each group. While females seek for security (15.7%; 17.3% for male students), males wish to find a family (19.2%; 12.9% for female students). Lastly, only 3.2% of female students aim at a career, an aim far more developed among male students (8.9%). These aims do not exclude each other, so the fact that only one answer was allowed may explain some of these unexpected results.

The next step in the analysis was to investigate correlations among the variables. The earlier on stated reciprocal dependence of attitudes and intentions towards entrepreneurship is confirmed by the correlations of 0.572 (RSpearman) significant at a 0.000 level for females and 0.473 (RSpearman) significant at a 0.000 level for males. These beta-values are comparable to the values Peters et al. (2006) (0,531), Lüthje and Franke (2003) (0.508) or Autio et al. (2001) (0.469) investigated for their models. In this sense, it can be stated that the stronger an individual intends to become an entrepreneur, the more positive is his or her attitude towards entrepreneurship. Again, there is a gender specific difference indicating this relationship between the attitudes towards entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial intentions is stronger for female students.

Except of planning and organising capabilities, all key figures showed positive and highly significant correlations towards the female entrepreneurial intentions. In this respect, we can denote that the more conquerable females experience impediments and the more support they can expect, the stronger their entrepreneurial intentions are. Moreover innovativeness, propensity towards risk, knowledge and curiosity, attitude towards work and desire for independence affect female entrepreneurial intentions in a positive way. Regarding male students on the other side the key figures innovativeness, propensity towards risk, knowledge and curiosity, planning and organising capabilities, and perceived impediments show positive and significant correlations towards entrepreneurial intentions.

Similar relationships can also be observed between the attitude towards entrepreneurship and the key figures. Regarding women all key figures except propensity towards risk and planning and organising capabilities are correlated significantly to the attitudes towards entrepreneurship. Perceived aids (RPearson = 0.375), attitude towards work (RPearson = 0.295), perceived impediments (RPearson = 0.282) and desire for independence (RPearson = 0.280) show the strongest relationship. The situation regarding male students is a little different. Here, the key figures perceived impediments and propensity towards risk are not correlated at a significant level. Desire for independence (RPearson = 0.385), perceived aids (RPearson = 0.336), innovativeness (RPearson = 0.300), attitude towards work (RPearson = 0.296) and planning and organising capabilities (RPearson = 0.224) are the strongest and highly significant correlations for male students. So the most obvious gender specific difference is a far stronger relationship between the attitude towards entrepreneurship and the desire for

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independence. Furthermore, it seems that females do not rely on aids, but on their perceived capability to overcome impediments, while males seek for support.

In order to validate the model, linear regressions were performed for male and female students. The influence of all key figure variables upon the attitude towards entrepreneurship (AtE) was calculated. Regarding female students the enter method (R²= 0.427) resulted in significant influences on the economic situation (ES), the desire for independence (DfI), perceived aids (PA) and entrepreneurial intentions (EI). The following regression line shows the relationships:

AtE 0.125*ES 0.279*DfI 0.219*PA 0.310*EI – 0.545= − + + +

The stepwise method was used to consider correlations between the variables. The variables EI, DfI, situation of start-up guidance (SoSG) and the attitude towards work (AtW) were included (see Figures 4 and 5). For the general model containing five variables an R² of 0.374 is calculated. In this respect, nearly 40% of the variance of the variable attitude towards entrepreneurship can be explained by the model.

Regarding male students the enter method (R² = 0.455) resulted in significant influences of the educational situation (EdS), DfI, PA and EI. The following regression line shows the relationships:

AtE 0.111*EdS 0.359*DfI 0.283*PA 0.313*EI 0.083= − + + + +

The stepwise method calculated an R² of 0.387, a result even better than for the model concerning female students mentioned afore. Here, the variables EI, DfI, PA and AtW were included (see Figures 4 and 5).

Furthermore, a regression of all key factors upon the entrepreneurial intent was calculated, validating the assumption regarding the entrepreneurial intent being sort of a moderating variable for the attitude towards entrepreneurship. This relationship is not gender specific and is therefore found for female and male students. The variable attitude towards entrepreneurship unites the influences of some key figures and affects the entrepreneurial intentions. R² of 0.312 for female and of 0.387 for male students are achieved for the regressions (stepwise) regarding the key figures as independent variables and the entrepreneurial intentions as dependent variables. The main gender specific difference is that while female entrepreneurial intentions are merely influenced significantly through attitude towards entrepreneurship (beta value of 0.466) and perceived impediments (beta value of 0.263), male entrepreneurial intentions are significantly influenced by attitude towards entrepreneurship (beta value of 0.468), perceived impediments (beta value of 0.177), situation of start-up guidance (beta value of 0.183) and knowledge and curiosity (beta value of 0.196). In this respect, the beta values of 0.466 (female) and 0.468 (male) are comparable to the results of further work in this field (Ajzen 1991; Autio et al., 2001; Davidsson, 1995; Ingram et al., 2000; Krueger and Brazeal, 1994, Krueger, 2000; Lüthje and Franke, 2003; Peters et al., 2006; Shapero, 1984). A distinctiveness of the model is that not all key figures were included in the model. This is even more true for women than for men (see Figures 4 and 5). Propensity towards risk, innovativeness, planning and organising capabilities and perceived environmental influences are not included in either model. This fact can stem from co-correlations with other independent variables.

The Figures 4 and 5 show the relevant gender specific relationships influencing the image of entrepreneurship.

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Figure 4 Model female students

0.263

0.466

Attitude towards entrepreneurship

Perceived impediments

0.356

Perceived aids

Attitude towards work Desire for independence

Situation of start-up guidance

0.257

0.256 0.182

0.151

Entrepreneurial intention

Source: Own illustration

Figure 5 Model male students

0.177

0.468

Attitude towards entrepreneurship

Perceived impediments

0.319

Perceived aids

Attitude towards work Desire for independence 0.250

0.327 0.154

Knowledge and curiosity Situation of start-up guidance

0.196 0.183Entrepreneurial intention

Source: Own illustration

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An apparent influence is the one between the perceived impediments and the entrepreneurial intentions, indicating that the more bearable impediments are perceived the stronger are the entrepreneurial intentions. A similar relationship can be found between perceived aids and attitude towards entrepreneurship. Again, the attitude towards entrepreneurship is more positive the more and the better support is perceived. These relationships can be observed for both genders.

Further factors influencing the attitudes towards entrepreneurship are attitudes towards work and desire for independence. An interesting difference between the genders is that the situation of start-up guidance influences the females’ attitudes towards entrepreneurship, but the males’ entrepreneurial intentions indicating an important difference between female and male student decisions regarding entrepreneurship. Furthermore, the males’ entrepreneurial intentions are also influenced by the variable knowledge and curiosity. The attitude towards entrepreneurship of both genders are conditioned by the desire for independence, the attitude towards work and perceived aids. The attitudes towards entrepreneurship of female students are also influenced by the situation of start-up guidance. The more pronounced these variables present themselves, the more positive the attitude towards entrepreneurship turns out to be. Interesting is the fact that while perceived aids influence the attitude towards entrepreneurship perceived impediments take effect on the entrepreneurial intentions. The more conquerable these impediments are perceived the stronger the entrepreneurial intentions are.

6 Conclusions

The image of entrepreneurship is determined by the attitudes towards entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial intentions. The phenomenon of relatively high mean values for the attitude towards entrepreneurship and relatively low mean values for the entrepreneurial intentions can be observed among all students. One gender specific difference here is that males evaluate themselves more positive. So their attitudes (mean value 3.76) and intentions (mean value 2.23) towards entrepreneurship are slightly higher compared to their female counterparts (mean values of 3.58 and 2). The two variables strongly influence themselves in a reciprocal way, so they themselves are their strongest determinants. The difference between the two variable attitudes towards entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial intentions seems realistic since entrepreneurship is a positively evaluated role model in society, but of course not everybody perceives a chance for becoming an entrepreneur.

Further factors influencing the attitudes and intentions of female and male students are the desire for independence, perceived aids, perceived impediments, situation of start-up guidance and attitudes towards work. Despite the fact that again women tend to evaluate themselves less positive concerning the aforementioned factors there is one major difference between the genders. While the variable situation of start-up guidance influences the female attitudes towards entrepreneurship, it influences the male entrepreneurial intentions. This finding indicates that it is necessary to differentiate between females and males when it comes to start-up support. For this reason, further survey and research concerning start-up guidance and its effect need to be conducted. Additionally, it needs to be analysed if genders react differently towards the same start-up guidance.

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Generally, it can be stated that the attitudes towards entrepreneurship have to be very positive in order to develop positive entrepreneurial intentions. In this sense, future research programmes should investigate this relationship. Most of all, it has to be clarified why the intentions lag behind and how especially these intentions can be influenced positively. For Austria, one reason for low intentions could be the high need for security leading to very strict credit rules and social stigmatisation in case of unsuccessful ventures.

The major influences of females’ intentions are perceived impediments. The more conquerable they are the more concrete the intentions turn out to be. In this case, female students in Innsbruck seem not to have the feeling of being able to overcome existing impediments because of their low entrepreneurial intentions. The key figure perceived impediments shows a mean value of 2.89 which tends to be a rather mediocre value. The case becomes clearer when analysing the single questions constituting the key figure. 27.6% of the interviewees stated that bureaucratically impediments would prevent them or rather prevent them from becoming an entrepreneur, 42.9% spare the financial risk, 52.5% reckon lacking experience and contacts as rather impeding and 45.2% are rather discouraged by the competition. According to the female students, work experience and education (mean value 4.22) are of major importance for the choice of career. In this respect, one trigger for female entrepreneurial activity may be found in an educational system more construed towards entrepreneurship. The combination with work experience indicates that such experience may also be gathered during education.

The problem of lacking contacts should also be targeted during education by equipping students with knowledge concerning social competence, networking and further skills enabling an interdisciplinary team play. In this respect it is often talked about so-called soft skills which ought to be promoted for the development of personalities. Thus, character traits like persistency and self-confidence should be promoted in education (Faltin et al., 1998).

For male students, the situation is similar when merely looking at the entrepreneurial intentions, but still a lot more positive (mean value of 2.23 compared to 2 for female students). First of all, male students’ entrepreneurial intentions are not only influenced by perceived impediments, but also by knowledge and curiosity and the situation of start-up guidance, a factor influencing females’ attitudes towards entrepreneurship. This is very interesting, because enhancing the perceived situation of start-up guidance directly affects male’s intentions. On the other side, female’s intentions are only fostered indirectly via the attitudes towards entrepreneurship when enhancing the perceived situation of start-up guidance. This is a clear gender specific difference economic policy has to take into account.

When studying the perceived impediments further gender specific differences occur. 34.1% of the interviewees stated that bureaucratic impediments would prevent them or rather prevent them from becoming an entrepreneur, which is nearly 10% higher as for female students. Therefore, only 36% spare the financial risk, 48.6% reckon lacking experience and contacts as rather impeding and 33.6% are rather discouraged by the competition. These numbers make clear that males perceive impediments as more conquerable than females do.

The model at hand shows influencing elements of attitudes towards entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial intentions considering a variety of character traits and personal abilities as well as general environmental factors. Moreover, the model enables us to identify gender specific differences leading to a better understanding of female and male

466 A. Strobl et al.

career choices regarding entrepreneurship. A major weakness of this model is surely found in the self-assessment of the interviewees. This procedure may incur a bias towards overestimating personal abilities and traits.

Future research should therefore contemplate gender specific differences in entrepreneurship in order to strengthen potential female and male entrepreneurs.

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Notes 1 Only fully completed questionnaires were accepted.


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