Economic development of community by entrepreneurship: an investigation of the entrepreneurial intent and the institutional support to the local community in Al-Kharj region

The purpose of the present study is twofold, to investigate the entrepreneurial intent of the university students and to chalk out with the factors (educational) to be considered for institutional support by the university under study. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) questionnaire was adopted and administered along with a separate sixteen items sheet containng the items pertaining to the institutional suppot mechanisms. Overall, 370 responses were collected from both male & female students. The Data was analysed by applying correlations, linear and hierarchical regression and exploratory factor analysis (EFA). The results of the study reaffirm the theory of planned behaviour in Saudi context with a significant variance of 43.2 percent in explaining students’ entrepreneurial intent. However, in the present case it is found that both attitude and perceived behavioral control are the significant predictors of entrepreneurial intent. Moreover, the subjective norm did not significantly predict the entrepreneurial intent. The findings also suggest a four steps generic model of institutional educational support for entrepreneurial nurturement to the local community.


Introduction
The effect of entrepreneurship on unemployment reduction, income generation and economic prosperity is observed and examined by many studies like Birch (1983), McMullan and Long (1987), Thurik (2003) and Baptista and Thurik (2007), etc.There is a consensus among management practitioners and researchers that successful new ventures are the contributing factors to employment that leads to political and social stability, innovation and competition (Khan, 2013).Undoubtedly, entrepreneurship is something that has to be nurtured within the country itself.In this context it is noticed that educational institutions play a vital role in providing trained workforce; new knowledge creation; support to the existing research and innovation; knowledge transfer; attractor of new talent etc. (Gertler & Vinodrai, 2005;Kirby, 2006).Universities are not only considered as the producers and disseminators of new knowledge (Guerrero & Urbano, 2012) but they are also instrumental in regional, economic and social development (Bygrave & Minniti, 2000;Kirby et al., 2011).In the present knowledge economy, universities are more focused towards promoting the entrepreneurial culture among the community and industries as a whole (Abreu et al., 2016;Kirby et al., 2011).There is evidence worldwide where a significant relationship between the support provided by universities and the level of entrepreneurial activities can be cited easily (Coduras et al., 2008).A University could be primarily a dedicated entrepreneurial university, oriented towards innovation and entrepreneurial culture (Kirby, 2006) or it can be a simply an educational institution with a distinct vision and mission (other than entrepreneurship) but also having some inclination towards entrepreneurship.
The second type of institution is the focal point in the present study.Up to what extent and how a primarily teaching and secondarily research focused regional university can contribute and support in the entrepreneurial development of the local community.The present study has a twofold aim: (1) to measure the level of entrepreneurial intent among the selected and targeted community.i.e. confined to Al-Kharj region of Saudi Arabia; (2) to investigate and suggest the supportive measures required to uplift or nourish the entrepreneurial culture among the community as a whole.

Review of Existing literature on Entrepreneurial intent and hypothesis setting
Successful entrepreneurship is considered as an offshoot of entrepreneurial intent.According to Bird (1988), "entrepreneurial intention refers to the individual state of mind that aimed at creating new ventures, developing a new business concept or creating new value within existing firm".Researchers show that intentions can be cultivated and inspired by providing the educational and other kinds of support needed for successful entrepreneurial activities (Matlay, 2008;Støren, 2014).Studies like Engle et al. (2011) suggests that institutional supports in a variety of ways is much desirable and needed to influence and nourish the entrepreneurial intent and for the successful development of entrepreneurship.Though explaining human behaviour in all its complexity is a difficult task (Ajzen, 1991).The theory of planned behaviour has been proven to predict the behaviour by utilising its antecedent.Intention to perform behaviour of different kinds can be predicted with high accuracy from attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control (Ajzen, 1991;Ajzen, 2002).Intentions are assumed to capture the motivational factors that influence the behaviour.Intentions reflect the level of efforts of individuals to perform a particular behaviour.The three constructs namely, attitude toward the behaviour, subjective norm, and perception of behavioural control mentioned by Ajzen are the core of TPB.While combining these three constructs will lead to the formation of a behavioural intention (Ajzen, 2002).
One of the constructs out of the three independent constructs is the attitude towards a particular behaviour.Attitude is termed as the favourable or unfavourable appraisal of the conduct in question (Ajzen & Fishbein, 2005).It is because the attitude can be positive or negative towards some events or the things.9770/jesi.2018.5.4(14) 901 tested in the context of entrepreneurial intent or behaviour, it is found to be positive in the cross country studies (Iakovleva et al., 2011;Nabi et al., 2011).Attitude is one' personal construct belong to personality while Subjective norm is a social construct refers to the social pressure.Subjective norm refers to the perceived social behaviour to perform or not to perform the behaviour (Ajzen, 1991).People are likely to engage in entrepreneurship when their socially build environment is favourable specifically the people surrounding them (Liñán, 2008;Radwan, Sakr, 2017).Subjective norms found to be a significant predictor of entrepreneurial intent in numerous studies like Kolvereid (1996); Krueger et al. (2000); Schwarz et al. (2009);van Gelderen et al. (2008); Schlaegel and Koenig (2014), etc.The third construct that constitutes the intention is the degree to the perceived behavioural control.It refers to the perceived ease or difficulty of performing the behaviour (Ajzen, 1991).The level of PBC depends upon the self-confidence to do the specific behaviour and availability of resources needed or assisting in performing the behaviour (Ajzen, 1991;Liñán & Chen, 2006;van Gelderen et al., 2008).As a rule of thumb as mentioned in the TPB (Ajzen, 1991) that "the more favourable the attitude and subjective norm concerning a behaviour, and the greater the perceived behavioural control, the stronger should be an individual's intention to perform the behaviour under consideration."Theory of planned behaviour has been applied successfully in different context and culture.In Saudi Context also it has been implemented by very few researchers only, and that too also rendered the mixed results.Table-1 provides the summary of studies conducted in Saudi context, specifically applying the TPB.
Thus the present study is significant in two ways (i) to reaffirm the results of earlier studies on TPB by taking a different sample base.(ii) to Come up with the mechanism of institutional support to nurture the antecedents of TPB which seems to be predicting the behavior of Saudi students.

Hypothesis Setting:
To test the TPB among the sample of Saudi students, the following hypothesis can be stated H1: The entrepreneurial antecedents of TPB positively influence the Entrepreneurial intent of students.H1a: The perceived attitude to perform the entrepreneurship positively influence the Entrepreneurial intent of students.H1b: The perceived Subjective Norm positively influences the Entrepreneurial intent of students.H1c: The perceived behavioural control positively affect the Entrepreneurial intent of students.
Perceived behavioral attitude is considered a good predictor of entrepreneurial intent in Arab Context.Studies like, Aloulou (2016); Khalifa and Dhiaf (2016); Almobaireek and Manolova (2012); Majumdar and Varadarajan (2013) etc. found that attitude significantly and constatntly predict the entrepreenurial intent of Arab students.Therefore, A possiblity of attitudinal impact on ther antecedents of TPB can not be overlooked.Thus, the second hypothesis can be stated as:

H2:
The Perceived attitude to perform entrepreneurship positively influence other antecedent of TPB.H2a: The perceived attitude to perform entrepreneurship positively influence the Subjective norm.H2b: The perceived attitude to perform entrepreneurship positively influence the perceived behavioural control of students.
Researchers like, Mustafa et al. (2016); Aloulou (2016); Turker and Sonmez Selcuk (2009) etc. have taken the demographic variable as the control variable to the entrepreneurial intent.We have also used the four different variables (gener, age, educational background and family business background) as control variables to regress over the entrepreneurial intent.Thus, the third hypothesis can be stated as:

H3:
The Demographic Variables like Gender, age, educational background and family business background positively influence the Entrepreneurial intent of students.

Methodology
The study is based on the primary data collected by administering the survey instrument adopted from (Liñán & Chen, 2009) for entrepreneurial intent antecedents and institutional support or educational support variables from (Saleh & Salhieh, 2014).The questionnaire was translated into Arabic language and administered in Arabic.The population selected for the survey was business students who were in level five and above (Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (BSBA) program has total eight levels) of Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University registered in different campuses.Notably, our focus here is not about the antiquities of an entrepreneurial research university but to explore the dimension of support by a newly established public university to the local community to support and promote their entrepreneurial intentions.Moreover, ultimately helping them to transform into the entrepreneurial behaviour.Here, we try to investigate the perception of the local community about the perceived support from a newly established university, has a vision of community services/partnership and which is primarily a teaching based university.
The questionnaire was administered for about 500 students in paper and pencil form.370 responses were collected from both male & female students.This overall constitute the effective rate of 74 percent.An intensive care was taken to validate the data for analysis.Missing values were checked before the final analysis.The major missing responses were eradicated while the responses with less missing frequencies were replaced with the series mean.The Outliers were detected with interquartile range (IQR) and box plotting using SPSS.The identified outlier was totally removed from the data.By this way, the total number of usable items for final analysis were 304.Table-2 below presents the characteristics of the sample used in the study.Table-3 provides the snapshot of the demographic characteristics of the population.The Cronbach's alpha for all the items of TPB was calculated together, i.e. 0.767 which is above than the reliability threshold.

Results and Discussions
The Table-4 explains the descriptive statistics of the TPB antecedents.Where the mean score for E_Intent is 5.988 (M= 5.988, SD =.988), the other antecedent has a mean ATTD (M= 5.896, SD =.823), S_Norm ((M= 5.279, SD =1.049), PBC (M= 4.921, SD =1.260) respectively.Before delving into the regression analysis, a spearman correlation among all the variables was selected in order to carry out the study.The Entrepreneurial intent (E_intent) was found that it has a statistically significant correlation with the perceived attitude towards behaviour (ATTD), Perceived subjective norm (S_Norm) and Perceived Behavioural control (PBC).There was no significant difference of entrepreneurial intent and its antecedent regarding gender (male/female) was cited.On the other hand, those with a family business background have a significant amount of correlation with entrepreneurial intent, and its antecedent.Table-5 above explains the results of correlations in details.
A multiple linear regression was carried out to know the predictability of TPB (entrepreneurial intent and its' antecedent) in the Saudi context.It was found to be significant with a regression equation (F(3, 300) = 76.118,p < .000),with an R 2 of .432and R 2 Adjusted = .427.Respondents' predicted Entrepreneurial Intent is equal to 1.310 -.583 + .073+.174, where all the Independent Variables (IVs) are measured on a seven-point Likert scale.It was found that both attitude and perceived behavioural control are the significant predictors of entrepreneurial intent.However, the subjective norm did not significantly predict the entrepreneurial intent (ᵦ=.077, t(303) = 1.493, ns).The collinearity statistics show no evidence of multicollinearity as measured by Variance Inflation Factor (VIF).
The tests indicated a very low level of multicollinearity, (VIF = 1.327,ATTD; 1.413 for S_Norm and 1.423 for PBC).The VIF in all the cases is >1 but less than 2.
Though there is no formal VIF value for determining the presence of multicollinearity but the lesser value of VIF not exceeding ten is considered as safe.Thus, the results discussed below in Table-6 support the hypothesis H1, H1a, and H1c.However, hypothesis H1b did not find any support for acceptance.To test our second hypotheses, a multiple linear regression test was carried out separately for the antecedents, where SN has been taken as the dependent variable.When ATTD is taken as IV the significant regression equation emerged as (F(1, 302) = 66.309, p < 0.000), with an R 2 of 0.180 and R 2 Adjusted = 0.177 (Table 7).
Moreover, the another regression equation, when PBC was taken as an IV emerged as (F(1, 302) = 69.132,p < 0.000), with an R 2 of 0.186 and R 2 Adjusted = 0.183 indicating that attitude is significantly impacting equally (with minor, negligible difference) with the other antecedents of TPB.(Table 8).Thus, the results discussed above provide the support for the hypotheses (H2, H2a and H2b) To test the hypothesis that the demographic variables like gender, age, educational background and family business background positively influence the entrepreneurial intent of students; a hierarchical multiple regression analysis was performed.As a first step regression on TPB antecedents were carried out.The antecedents have also repeated the same trend here and were still found to be statistically significant, where ATTD (ᵦ = .486;t = 9.688; p <.001), S_Norm (ᵦ = .077;t = 1.493; p= 1.493 ns), PBC (ᵦ = .222;t = 4.270; p <.001).At the time of combining these variables with the demographic variables as a second step the model fit has increased (R = .444,R 2 = .429,F (8, 295) = 29.425,p < .001) that means addition of the demographic variables improve the prediction of the model.However, the individual coefficients of the demographic variables are found to be insignificant.In this section, an attempt has been made to investigate and identify the factors that can be fruitful to streamline the institutional support from the education perspectives.To collect the student's perspectives from an educational point of view, a sixteen items questionnaire adopted from Saleh and Salhieh (2014) was administered as an integral component of the TPB questionnaire on a seven-point likert scale.A total of 304 questionnaires were used for the analysis.However, before executing the factor analysis, an intensive care was taken to validate the data reliability.High volume missing values were eradicated, and low-level missing values were replaced with series mean.The Cronbach's alpha for these items were calculated separately, i.e. 0.961 which is highly reliable.
Before proceeding with the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) sampling adequacy was checked with Kaiser-Meyer-Ohlin (KMO) and sphericity with Barlett's test.The KMO was found to be 0.948, indicating that data is highly sufficient and justified for the EFA.The sphericity test is also found to be significant.
As a second step, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using Principal Axis Factoring and Non-Orthogonal Promax rotation with Kaiser Normalization (Eigenvalues ≥ 1) was conducted.In total four factors were extracted, combining explained a total of 73.27 percent of Variation.The items with a threshold limit of ≤ .45 were eliminated.The results of EFA and pattern matrix are in the form of Table-9.After careful deliberations, the factors emerged through EFA can be streamlined in the form of a four-step model in which the factor one which constitutes variables from 1-3 can be named as Germination of Entrepreneurship.
The germination can be possible by providing entrepreneurial centric educational support by offering courses focused on inculcating the entrepreneurial ability and start up capacity.
Factor two consists the variables from 6-11; can be termed as Cultivation of entrepreneurial skills which are necessary for a successful entrepreneur by creating a culture of entrepreneurship and by offering flexible, need base and real time curriculum.

Conclusion, suggestions and limitations
The present research indicates the wider acceptability of TPB in predicting the entrepreneurial intent world-wide.
The purpose of the study was twofold, (i) to investigate the entrepreneurial intent of the university students, under consideration, (ii) to chalk out the factors (educational) to be considered for institutional support by the university under study.The results provide the sufficient evidence that antecedents of TPB except subjective norm contribute significantly towards predicting the entrepreneurial intent of Saudi students.Thus our results show consistency with Ali (2016); Almobaireek and Manolova (2012) and (Iqbal et al., 2012) who found subjective norm to be the insignificant predictor of the entrepreneurial intent of Saudi students.Surprisingly these results contradict with Aloulou (2016) who found subjective norm to be the strong predictor of the intent of Saudi students.
Therefore, the findings support the previous research on TPB which reflects the importance of this model worldwide (Engle et al., 2010;Kautonen et al., 2015;Lüthje & Franke, 2003;Shook & Bratianu, 2010;van Gelderen et al., 2008).The findings match with the findings of Krueger et al. (2000) and (Autio et al., 2001) who found Attitude and PBC as the significant and vigorous predictor of EI but not the Subjective norm.The Demographic variables (such as gender, age, family business background, etc.) taken together along with TPB also do not seem to pose a significant impact over the antecedent of TPB but improve the prediction power of the model.
The prior application of TPB in Saudi context suggested that attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control when taken together explain 33.4 percent variance in Aloulou ( 2016) and 40 percent in Ali (2016).However, in the present study it shows 43.2 percent.
The second section of the paper that carried out the factor analysis emerged with four important factors from a population source that do not have any specific & formal kind of entrepreneurial education but have a bent of mind and more importantly a positive attitude towards starting new ventures and interested in playing an entrepreneurial role in future.The factors extracted by the exploratory factor analysis are emerged into a four-step generic model that can be set into the Germination of entrepreneurial seed, Cultivating entrepreneurial culture, Blooming of entrepreneurial mind and Harvesting of entrepreneurs' initiative.Saudi Arabia is the biggest market in GCC.Therefore, Universities are encouraged to have formal agreements/partnerships with the startups and new ventures facilitation centers.
Likely others one of the limitations of the study can be pointed that the results cannot be generalised as the study is particularly focussed on one region and universities of Saudi Arabia.Another limitation can be that the sample was analysed by applying only the linear approach of regression; a second generation structural approach can get more reliable and robust results.

Factor
three consists the variables 11&12 are named as blooming.Blooming of entrepreneurial culture can be possible by creation of entrepreneurial awareness to enhance the entrepreneurial career launching.The next factor four consists of variables 14 to 16 and variable 4 can be named as Harvesting which is the combined results of the above three steps/factors that can be possible by creating networking opportunities for startup funding.This proposed generic model reflected in Figure-1 below can be taken as a support mechanism of entrepreneurship development among the local community by the Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University.

Fig. 1 .
Fig.1.Generic Model of institutional support to the Local Community for entrepreneurship development Source: Researcher's compilation While attitude was

Table 1 .
Summary of Existing literature of Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) in Saudi Arabia

Table 6 .
Regression Results for Hypothesis 1

Table 8 .
Regression Results for Hypothesis 3