Entrepreneurial Intention: Does Social Intelligence Matter?

Abstract

In Malaysia, entrepreneurship has been viewed as one of the active economic activities, which could boost the growth of nation and develop the individuals. However, the interest in entrepreneurship among Malaysian students is still low, where most of them prefer to be “job seeker” or “employee” instead of “job creator”. The role of education, generally, has been recognized as a crucial process in developing individuals by providing knowledge and skills. In order to support the creation of new venture among nascent entrepreneur, entrepreneurship education is viewed as crucial element that can encourage this happening which could help to reduce unemployment rate. The impact of social intelligence could be one of the crucial variables to be studied in order to predict the entrepreneurial intention among the students. Hence, this study examined the mediating effect of entrepreneurship motivation on the relationship between the variables. The study found there is a significant mediating effect of motivation on the relationship between education and entrepreneurial intention, but there is no significant mediating effect on the relationship between social intelligence and entrepreneurial intention. This paper discussed the implications and recommendations as well.