An inquiry into entrepreneurial characteristics amongst students in Ahmedabad

Abstract

The aim of this study is to find the intensity of entrepreneurial characteristics and influence of demographic factors i.e. gender, family background and education on the entrepreneurial characteristics of university students. A questionnaire survey of 106 students of Ahmedabad University was conducted. The questionnaire consisted of two sections. The first section measured the demographic profile of the respondents and the second section measured the six entrepreneurial characteristics i.e. Locus of Control, Need for Achievement, Propensity to take Risk, Tolerance for ambiguity, Self-Confidence, Innovativeness. Descriptive statistics was used to measure the intensity of various entrepreneurial characteristics and chi-square test was conducted to verify the dependence of entrepreneurial characteristic on various demographic variables. It was found that, among the six characteristics studied, students have highest intensity of 'Need for achievement' and lowest intensity for 'Tolerance of Ambiguity'. Further, no statistically significant impact of demographic variables was observed on most of the entrepreneurial characteristics under study, which is also in consensus with the various previous researches. But a significant dependence of propensity to take risk on gender, and innovativeness on academic performance were the major findings of the study. The study provides an insight into the intensity of Entrepreneurial characteristics of the students which can be helpful from the perspective of designing Entrepreneurship education curriculum, focusing more on the skills found to have lesser intensity among the students.