Students’ individual entrepreneurial orientation and the scope of startup activities in Russia: The role of university infrastructure

Abstract

The development of startup activity among students is often considered a key ingredient to increasing entrepreneurship levels and reducing unemployment rates among youth. This study examines the role of personal characteristics and university infrastructure components in the context of nascent entrepreneurship in an emerging market setting. Drawing on the self-efficacy perspective, we theorize the effect of students' individual entrepreneurial orientation on the scope of their startup activity. Based on the university embeddedness theory, we further explore whether the university entrepreneurial environment and entrepreneurial program learning moderate this relationship. Our sample was drawn from the 2021 GUESSS project, which includes 1521 students from 21 universities in Russia. Data were analyzed using hierarchical multiple regression models with the help of Stata MP software. We found that individual entrepreneurial orientation increases the scope of students' startup activities, and the university entrepreneurial environment that is evaluated above the median score strengthens this relationship, while the entrepreneurial program learning has no effect. Our research seeks to draw researchers' and practitioners' attention to the need of both exploring the nuances of students’ personal traits that influence their involvement in startup activities and building an effective university entrepreneurial ecosystem to stimulate entrepreneurial endeavors among youth.