An International Analysis of University Students’ Entrepreneurial Intentions : A Four Country Comparison

This paper aims to identify determinants of entrepreneurial intentions among young people in four countries. We have used a revised Entrepreneurial Intention Questionnaire including personal traits, demographic characteristics, the three factors of the Theory of Planned Behavior, and entrepreneurial intentions. The empirical basis is formed by surveys among Chinese, Korean, Israel, and the US university students. The main objective is to compare the impact of different economic and cultural contexts. In the total sample, there are strongly significant and positive relationships between the three TPB factors and entrepreneurial intentions. In individual samples, however, there is one factor in every country which is not significant. Gender, academic major, and family member’s business experience have significant impacts, while academic year and motivation to be an entrepreneur have no significant impact. Generally, the level of entrepreneurial intentions are significantly higher among Israel and Korean students than Chinese and the US students. However, Korean students’ entrepreneurial intentions are significantly higher than Chinese and Israel students,’ while the US students’ intentions are significantly lower than Chinese and Israel students,’ after holding all the other factors constant, which may be due to unobserved heterogeneity among countries.