Entrepreneurial intent and perseverance among South African students

• Main Author: Pendame, Richard
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10539/15568

Thesis (M.M. (Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Graduate School of Business Administration, 2014. === South Africa is currently experiencing high levels of unemployment, and entrepreneurship is regarded as a tool that can help solve the problem. Entrepreneurial intent is regarded as the best predictor of actual entrepreneurial behaviour. On the other hand, perseverance is believed to influence a person’s course of action and is considered to be one of the motivating factors that are necessary for entrepreneurship, as it acts as an inner drive towards a given goal (Harris, Gibson, & Mick, 2009). In this regard, we question if there is a relationship between entrepreneurial intent and perseverance. Data was collected using two self-rating questionnaires called the Individual Entrepreneurial Intent Scale (IEIS) developed by Thompson (2009) to measure entrepreneurial intentions and the Short Grit Scale (Grit-S) which was developed by Duckworth and Quinn (2009) to measure perseverance. The study found no significant relationship to exist between perseverance (measured using grit) and entrepreneurial intent. Regardless of a low level of perseverance, a person with high levels of entrepreneurial intent may still start a business. According to the person-entrepreneurship fit model, this person is more likely to fail (Markman & Robert, 2003). Furthermore, the study found final-year university students to have a low level of entrepreneurial intent and perseverance. The findings suggest that students prefer to be employed and thus will put more effort into finding a job than starting their own business ventures. They are unlikely to cope with the challenges associated with entrepreneurship. Recommendations were made to educators and organisations aimed at developing entrepreneurs. These recommendations suggested were to improve current entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial training courses by introducing programmes aimed at improving the learners’ levels of perseverance within the entrepreneurship courses. A recommendation was also made to introduce entrepreneurship courses to students from all fields of study, with the main aim of creating awareness and participation.