The Role of Theory of Planned Behavior on Entrepreneurial Intention of Greek Business Students

Purpose – The main purpose of this study is twofold: (1) to measure and compare the entrepreneurial intention of business students attending the first and the fourth year of Business studies in a Greek university in order to determine the impact of curriculum and (2) to explore the role of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) in explaining students’ entrepreneurial intention.Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire was distributed to a sample of 186 students attending the 1st (108) and the 4th (78) year of studies at Business Management. Besides descriptive statistics, T-test, correlations, and multiple linear regressions were estimated to test hypotheses.Findings – The three components of the Theory of Planned Behavior seem to play a differentiated role in the formation of the entrepreneurship intentions of business student, with subjective norms proved to be insignificant in the process of intention formation. Furthermore, the role of entrepreneurial curriculum and content was insignificant in influencing the rather weak intentions of business students to pursue a self-employed career. Fourth year students after attending a number of business, related courses were found to report on average less strong entrepreneurship intentions compared to the first year students. Originality/value – This study represents a first systematic quantitative effort to measure and compare the entrepreneurship intentions of the first and fourth year students of a Greek university and explore the effect of the components of TPB.