Examining Entrepreneurial Social Support Among Undergraduates

Abstract

Entrepreneurial social support is believed as an important factor to enhance entrepreneurial self-efficacy. The aims of this study were to examine entrepreneurial social support among undergraduates; to investigate differences of support provided by family, friends, significant other, and entrepreneurship course facilitators; and to examine differences of support among students with gender differences. This study involved 199 undergraduate students from a university which adopted entrepreneurship education in the curriculum. Gender distribution of the sample was 51.8% females and 48.2% males. Entrepreneurial Social Support scale was used as a data collection tool. This scale was a modification from the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support developed by Zimet et al. (1988). The results showed that the perceived support reported by students were in a moderate level, and tended to be high. Findings showed that support from friends scored the highest, whereas support from entrepreneurship course facilitators was reported as the lowest. Male students in general received more entrepreneurial support compared to female students. Detailed findings related to each source of Entrepreneurial Social Support and discussion of findings will be explored further in the paper.