Impact of some contextual factors on entrepreneurial intention of university students

Abstract

Entrepreneurship has captured the attention of both scholars and policy makers during the last decades. The main reason of this concern is the growing needs for entrepreneurs who accelerate economic development through generating new ideas and converting them into profitable ventures. Entrepreneurial activities are not only the incubators of technological innovation but also provide employment opportunity and increase competitiveness. Fostering entrepreneurship need a two-fold policy that should focus on both the current situation and future prospect of entrepreneurship. It is important to map out future context of entrepreneurship. The purpose of this paper is to fill this void by analyzing the impact of some contextual factors on entrepreneurial intention of university students. To fulfill this purpose we have proposed a model, which shows some contextual factors that affect on entrepreneurial intention. In this model, the entrepreneurial intention is taken as a function of structural, educational, formal networks and informal networks support. This model is tested on sample of 200 university students in Islamic Azad University, South Tehran Branch.  Key words: Entrepreneurial intention, student, university.