Attitude toward entrepreneurship, perceived behavioral control, and entrepreneurial intention: dimensionality, structural relationships, and gender differences

Drawing on the theory of planned behavior, the main purpose of this cross-sectional study was to identify gender-related differences in the levels of and the interrelations among attitude toward entrepreneurship, perceived behavioral control, and entrepreneurial intention using multi-group structural equations modeling in which the dimensions of these constructs were disentangled and treated as latent variables that were indirectly inferred from multiple indicators. The sample of the study consisted of 441 Greek tertiary education undergraduate information technology students. The results showed that attitude consists of two components-one instrumental and one affective; perceived behavioral control is comprised of two factors-perceived self-efficacy and perceived controllability; and entrepreneurial intention is best represented by three factors-choice intention, commitment to entrepreneurship, and nascent entrepreneurship. The findings indicated further that affective attitude and perceived self-efficacy are by far the strongest predictors of intention, thus highlighting the role of emotions in the entrepreneurial process. Our work revealed also that the relationship between commitment to entrepreneurship and nascent entrepreneurship is stronger in men than in women. Conceiving nascent entrepreneurship as a proxy for entrepreneurial behavior, this finding implies that gender is a moderator of the entrepreneurial intention-action translation. Despite its limitations, this study makes some important contributions and implications to the literature of entrepreneurship. These and future research suggestions are also discussed.