Ethnic minority group college students’ liberal and conservative attitudes to online start-ups: regional difference perspective

Purpose This study aims to analyse what factors influence ethnic minority group (EMG) college students’ attitudes towards promoting online start-ups and how their different attitudes impact their final online start-up behaviours on the live streaming platform. Based on the COM-B behaviour changing model and the theory of liberal and conservative attitudes, the research model has been established in this study, and it divides influencing factors into the environmental opportunity unit and personal capability unit. Design/methodology/approach To test relationships among the environmental opportunity, personal capability and personal attitude units, the partial least squares path modelling and variance-based structural equation modelling have been applied on the SmartPLS. Meanwhile, this study considers the regional difference between China’s developed and less-developed regions and promotes multi-group analysis based on it. Findings Research results show that the online start-up opportunity and capability positively affect EMG college students’ liberal attitudes but reduce EMGs’ conservative attitudes. Meanwhile, this study finds four significant differences, such as the path between conservative attitude and EMG students’ online start-up behaviour and the path between online start-up capability and conservative attitude. Originality/value This paper analyses the relationship between influencing factors and EMG students’ online start-up attitudes based on the COM-B behaviour changing model, contributing to the theoretical implications. Meanwhile, considering the impact of regional differences, this paper promotes the multi-group analysis and compares EMG college students from developed regions and others from less-developed areas.