An intention and competency based perspective of entrepreneurship-a study on hospitality undergraduate students

According to research, perceived feasibility and perceived desirability and propensity to act lead to entrepreneurship intentions. Entrepreneurial intentions are predictable through planned behavior. It is necessary to study the entrepreneurial intentions of individuals to understand the reason for venture creation. At the same time, one needs to recognize that it is the personal entrepreneurial characteristics that decide the roles individuals play towards a planned behavior, in this case –the starting of the venture. The objective of the present paper is to identify the hospitality undergraduate students’ intentions to start a business. The Sheparos/Ajzen’s models of desirability, feasibility, and propensity, to act has been adopted for this purpose. The second objective of the study is to empirically test the scores of the hospitality students on their personal entrepreneurship competencies and compare it with the established averages of ‘potential entrepreneurs’ by using a self-rating questionnaire. The study tries to relate the two identifiers-entrepreneurship intentions and entrepreneurship competencies. The study reveals that that notwithstanding intentions to start own business, the absence of required competencies may be a deterrent to start new ventures. It is more appropriate for the students to acquire the requisite competencies before venturing into entrepreneurship.