ENTREPRENEURIAL ASPIRATIONS OF COMMERCE STUDENTS: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY IN THE NAGPUR REGION

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is also becoming an important factor in economic development as well as creation of jobs especially in new economies such as India. The given work explores the entrepreneurship intentions of the commerce students in Nagpur area and, in particular, determines the processes which can help predict the nature of their desire to choose entrepreneurial careers. The paper is based on the TPB and examines how ATE, subjective norms, PBC and exposure to entrepreneurship education (EE) influence the formation of entrepreneurial intentions (EI). A descriptive and analytical research design was observed and 200 students in commerce were surveyed in terms of primary data through a structured questionnaire. The analyses were done through descriptive statistics, correlation, and multiple regression. The results indicate that there are moderate to high degree of entrepreneurial aspiration among commerce students with ATE and PBC proving to be the strongest predictors. A positive and significant effect is also demonstrated by EE with reference to the significance of experiential and skill-oriented learning strategies. The research makes a contribution to the body of literature available since it delivers localized information and offers the implications of the research that could be applied by learning institutions and policymakers in their quest of instilling entrepreneur culture in commerce students.