Factors influencing self-employment intention among Nigerian post-graduate students of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM)

Report shows that more than 60% of young individuals below 30 years of age are
interested in owning their own business. However, only a small number of students start
a business immediately after graduation due to the fact that being an entrepreneur is not
considered as a career option. This study seeks to examine the relationship between
entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurial experience and societal entrepreneurship
attitude as factors influencing self-employment intention. The study was theoretically
based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) and
Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT). Self-administered survey method was used to
distribute questionnaire for collecting primary data through a simple random sampling
technique from 113 Nigerian postgraduate students of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM)
who are active in status. The collected data were then analyzed. The findings of this
study found that entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurial experience and societal
entrepreneurship attitude are positively related to UUM’s Nigerian postgraduate
student’s intention towards self-employment. The study provides an enriched
contribution to knowledge and significant implication to the theory and practices of
entrepreneurship. It also signaled to policy makers such as education authority as well as
government to look into the effect of entrepreneurship education, prior entrepreneurship
experience as well as societal entrepreneurship attitude as influencing factors on
students’ intention of becoming self-employed.