Entrepreneurial intentions in post-Soviet economies

In the present paper, we apply the theory of planned behaviour and personal initiative taking literature to explore the entrepreneurial intentions of 266 female and 161 male respondents in Russia and Ukraine. Our findings show that the intensity of entrepreneurial intentions reported by Ukrainian students is higher than those reported by their Russian counterparts. We also find that men have higher entrepreneurial intentions then women in these countries. At the same time, gender moderates the relationship between perceived behavioural control and intentions, but not between attitude or subjective norms and intentions. We also find that personal initiative taking does not add to the explanation of entrepreneurial intentions above the variables in the theory of planned behaviour model. We discuss the possible reasons for these findings and their implications for future research.