Entrepreneurial Intention in Higher Vocational Education: An Empirically-Based Model with Implications for the Entrepreneurial Community

This study explores how entrepreneurship education and government policies influence the entrepreneurial intention of students receiving higher vocational education. It employs an empirically-based model that tests the effects of perceived entrepreneurial education and perceived entrepreneurial policy on entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intention. This study also analyzes the moderating effect of gender. The model was constructed based on the Theory of Reasoned Action. A total sample of 462 Chinese students from public and private higher vocational colleges were randomly selected to participate in this study, and their responses were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results of the research model showed that perceived entrepreneurial education and policy had positive direct influences on entrepreneurial self-efficacy and intention, respectively. Subsequently, students' entrepreneurial self-efficacy had a direct influence on their entrepreneurial intention. On the other hand, perceived entrepreneurial education and policy had multiple indirect influences on entrepreneurial intention mediated by entrepreneurial self-efficacy in higher vocational education. The findings also showed that gender did not significantly moderate the above direct and indirect causal relationships among the dimensions of the research model. Some implications for building better entrepreneurial community are provided. These include enabling students to obtain knowledge that is closely related to practice and to perceive the value of entrepreneurship education by creating participatory projects and teaching methods, issuing policies that college students care most about, proactively informing students about policy content in a clear and concise way, and fully considering the side effects of government policies and the compatibility among different kinds of policies.