Journal of Management Development

Factors affecting universities’ ability to foster students’ entrepreneurial behaviour: an empirical

investigation
Lamberto Zollo Maria Carmen Laudano Cristiano Ciappei Vincenzo Zampi
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Lamberto Zollo Maria Carmen Laudano Cristiano Ciappei Vincenzo Zampi , (2017)," Factors affecting universities’ ability to
foster students’ entrepreneurial behaviour: an empirical investigation ", Journal of Management Development, Vol. 36 Iss 2
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 Factors affecting universities’ ability to foster students’ entrepreneurial behaviour: an

empirical investigation

1. Introduction

In modern societies, universities play a key role, not only in knowledge transmission but also in

business creation. In the last century there have been significant academic revolutions through

which universities are today able to implement three types of “mission” (see Clark, 1998;

Etzkowitz, 2003). Thanks to the first academic revolution of the late 19th century, the research

mission has extended the traditional teaching mission of universities, thus emphasizing their ability
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to produce scientific knowledge and innovation transfer. Specifically concerning the first mission of

“teaching”, universities should develop a proactive and innovative character in students – also

referred to as “entrepreneurial” – as a form of education (European Commission, 2012). Through

the second mission of “research”, a university should transform itself “from ivory tower to

knowledge broker” (Gassmann et al., 2010, p. 217, in order to share with businesses and effectively

commercialize its intellectual property. Moreover, the second academic revolution of the mid-20th

century gave rise to the notion of the “entrepreneurial university” thanks to the third mission which

“transformed the university into a teaching, research and economic development enterprise”

(Etzkowitz, 2003, p. 110). Etzkowitz and colleagues seminally defined the entrepreneurial

university as an innovative and natural incubator able to support students’ entrepreneurial intent

fostering their ability to transform ideas into actual entrepreneurial activities (Etzkowitz 2001;

2003; Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 2000; Etzkowitz et al., 2000). More recently, Guerrero and

Urbano (2012) defined the entrepreneurial university as “a promoter of multiple support measures

for entrepreneurship” (p. 44), stressing its crucial societal role in improving regional development

and income-generating activities. Hence, the third mission of universities aims at strengthening

student entrepreneurship in order to better assist graduates in the creation of their own business and

facilitate both knowledge and technology transfer (for a review see Kuratko, 2005; Shane, 2004). It

emerges that such an entrepreneurial academic model should promote: (a) economic growth and

1
 social development in its specific geographical context, by being able to strategically combine

different cultures in an integrated way (Caiazza and Ferrara, 2016); (b) a better organized civic

society thanks to greater social cohesion among universities, state, and market (Clark, 1998; 2001);

(c) social innovation and entrepreneurship of a national system, by being involved in cross-sector

partnerships with both private and public organizations (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 2000).

Despite the importance of the entrepreneurial university phenomenon in modern societies, pertinent

literature is still in its nascent phase. While many researches have focused on academic spin-off

(Chiesa and Piccaluga, 2000; Markuerkiaga et al., 2016), and knowledge and technology transfer
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from university to business (Bray and Lee, 2000), less attention has been given to university macro

and micro factors impacting on students’ entrepreneurial attitude and intention, thus calling for

more research, especially concerning postgraduate students’ intent (Autio et al., 2001; Franke and

Lüthje, 2004). Besides, although researches have predominantly analysed successful American

research universities such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (Lüthje and Franke,

2003; O’Shea et al., 2005), limited attention has been given to the European scenario, especially to

the Italian universities (Margherita and Secundo, 2011). Actually, Italian universities have an

important tradition of entrepreneurship education (Davies, 1998), among which we cite the

Polytechnic of Milan (Etzkowitz, 2003), University of Pisa and University of Bologna (Chiesa and

Piccaluga, 2000). We build on this stream of research and, in order to analyse factors impacting on

student entrepreneurship, we investigate how an important Italian University with an ancient

tradition such as the University of Florence – located in the Region of Tuscany – is able to provide

entrepreneurial initiation, development, and active support to postgraduate students. We attempt to

contribute to recent literature on student entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship intention by

investigating micro and macro factors affecting entrepreneurial universities in a scarcely

investigated Italian geographical area. To do this, we empirically tested how behavioural and

environmental factors conjunctly impact on Masters students’ entrepreneurial attitude and intent.

2
 2. Research background

2.1. Entrepreneurship as intentional behaviour

The influence of entrepreneurship – defined as “the ability to take the initiative to organize a new

enterprise” (Etzkowitz, 2003, p. 111) – on economic development and growth has been the object

of analysis in many streams of research in the management literature. Recent findings show how

entrepreneurship enhances employment and income generation, fostering innovation and a more

balanced economic and social structure (Heinonen and Poikkijoki, 2006). According to Kuratko

(2005), since the nature of the entrepreneurship process is dynamic, creative and original, it requires
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energy and passion by entrepreneurs who are able to effectively exploit opportunities and create

change and innovation (p. 578). Hence, given that entrepreneurial activities result from intentionally

planned behaviour (Autio et al., 2001; Krueger et al., 2000), management theorists have built

widely on the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) in order to better investigate the antecedents of

entrepreneurship (see for example Peterman and Kennedy, 2003; Schlaegel and Koenig, 2014;

Thompson, 2009).

TPB was originally validated by Ajzen and Fishbein (1980; see also Ajzen, 1991), who argued that

individual attitudes predict intention that, in turn, predicts behaviour. Once applied to the

entrepreneurial context, it emerges that individual intentions are “important mediating variables

between the act of starting a business venture and potential exogenous influences” (Krueger et al.,

2000, p. 413). Building on the TPB, scholars have focused on factors affecting entrepreneurial

intent (see Autio et al., 2001; Krueger and Brazeal, 1994; Krueger et al., 2000; Liñán et al., 2011),

founding positive associations with the three main predictors of behavioural intention, namely (a)

perceived behavioural control, (b) subjective norms, and (c) personal attitude (Ajzen, 1991; Ajzen

and Fishbein, 1980). (a) The former predictor refers to an individual’s degree of perceived control

over the behaviour and its expected outcome in a particular situation, over which he/she has partial

volitional control – as in the decision to start a new business. Perceived behavioural control builds

on the notion of self-efficacy (Ajzen, 1991; Bandura, 1977), which has been recognized as an

3
 important predictor of an individual’s perceived feasibility of a behavioural intention (Peterman and

Kennedy, 2003). (b) Subjective norms, instead, refer to the individual’s perceptions of social

pressure to accomplish that behaviour – e.g. social expectations and desirability of becoming self-

employed (Autio et al., 2001, pp. 146-147). Finally, (c) personal attitude acquires particular

significance as a predictor of entrepreneurial intention, since it refers to the degree to which an

individual’s emotional considerations and evaluation of the behaviour in question – e.g. about

individuals becoming entrepreneurs – impact on his/her future intention and behaviour (Autio et al.,

2001; Fitzsimmons and Douglas, 2011). Specifically, individual attitude accounts for
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“approximately 50% of the variance in intentions” (Autio et al., 2001, p. 148). Consistent with this,

Lüthje and Franke (2003) conclude that attitude toward self-employment provides the strongest

explanation for entrepreneurial intention and “Further research in the area of attitude formation

holds promise for enhancing the understanding of the entrepreneurial intent and the effective

cultivation of a business founding spirit among students” (p. 143; see also Franke and Lüthje,

2004). Notwithstanding the importance of perceived behavioural control and subjective norms, we

focus on postgraduates’ attitude toward entrepreneurial behaviour as a significant influencing factor

of students’ intention of becoming self-employed.

2.2. Students’ entrepreneurial intent

The literature does not provide a unique definition of entrepreneurial intent, except for a few

studies, such as the recent contribution of Thompson (2009), who provides a clear definition of

entrepreneurial intention as “a conscious and planned resolve that drives actions necessary to launch

a business” (p. 671; see also Fitzsimmons and Douglas, 2011). Such a definition refers to the

decision to start a business in the future, either in the short or long term, depending on different

circumstances, which may result in what Krueger and Brazeal (1994) define as a ‘potential

entrepreneur’. One of the main objectives of entrepreneurial education is to extract the

entrepreneurial potential from its “human capital” (Guerrero and Urbano, 2012, p. 55), such as

4
 students who may be regarded as potential entrepreneurs during their university experience.

According to Krueger et al. (2000), the reason why it is important to assess entrepreneurial intent

among non-entrepreneurs – such as students – refers to the importance of investigating

entrepreneurial behaviour before it actually occurs, i.e. in its nascent cognitive phase, since

entrepreneurship careers initially sprout in individual minds. The authors argue that, instead of

studying current entrepreneurs, samples of students express entrepreneurial vocational intentions

during a critical period of significant career choice (Krueger et al., 2000, p. 420). Consistently,

recent research has stressed that dominant models of entrepreneurial intent exclusively focus on the
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“pre-entrepreneurial event” (Peterman and Kennedy, 2003, p. 130). As a result, studying students’

entrepreneurial intent reflects well the effectiveness of universities in designing entrepreneurship

programmes that are incentives to a willingness to become self-employed (Franke and Lüthje,

2004).

Building on the TPB, several scholars have found that students’ intention to start a new business is

strongly influenced by entrepreneurial attitude which, in turn, is predicted by both internal and

external factors (Lüthje and Franke, 2003; Robinson et al., 1991; Schlaegel and Koenig, 2014). The

internal factors refer to the personal characteristics of possible future entrepreneurs, including

demographic and psychological variables, personal traits, individual skills, and social network (for a

review see Fini et al., 2012; Shane et al., 2003). Among these, important traits that affect the

“personality of new venture creators” (Franke and Lüthje, 2004, p. 280) are risk-taking propensity

and locus of control, which have been historically recognized as essential “ingredients” of

entrepreneurship (Crant, 1996; Kuratko, 2005; Lüthje and Franke, 2003; Robinson et al., 1991) and

will be examined in the present research. Brockhaus (1980) traditionally defined risk-taking

propensity as “the perceived probability of receiving the rewards associated with success of a

proposed situation”, thus describing “the situation that faces the potential entrepreneur when he

decides to establish a new business venture” (p. 513). As stressed before, in our research the state of

‘potential entrepreneur’ is associated with students trying to express their entrepreneurial potential

5
 during the university experience (Krueger et al., 2000), which stresses the key role of

entrepreneurial universities in educating potential entrepreneurs, creating businesses, and becoming

themselves entrepreneurs (Clark 1998; 2001). Building on Brockhaus’ theory, Kaufmann et al.

(1995) define internal locus of control as the “personal belief that one has influence over outcomes

through ability, effort, or skills” and external locus of control as the “belief that external forces

control outcomes” (p. 43). Such a belief fosters an individual inclination to engage in

entrepreneurial behaviours. Traditional literature supports these definitions; for example, Knight

(1921) identifies risk-taking propensity as one of the main personality traits of the entrepreneur. In
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addition, Rotter (1966) stresses that entrepreneurs are characterized by the higher internal locus of

control with respect to non-entrepreneurs; specifically, an individual with high scores of internal

locus of control believes in being responsible for what happens to him/her and to be able to control

and influence his/her destiny.

The second predictor of entrepreneurial attitude refers to external variables delineating the

environment in which the entrepreneur will create his/her business. Among these contextual

variables the literature has mostly analysed environmental support (i.e. government) (Meek et al.,

2010; Zahra and Covin, 1995) and organizational factors (Fini et al., 2012). Specifically, there is

wide recognition that the university context plays a crucial role in affecting entrepreneurship, as

stressed by Clark (2001): “Entrepreneurship, then, is not a management posture that serves only

new ventures in science and technology; it operates throughout the university” (p. 21). In fact, one

of the main objectives of entrepreneurial university education refers to fostering students’

perception of entrepreneurship (Kuratko, 2005; Peterman and Kennedy, 2003). This is why

entrepreneurship teaching, active stakeholder participation with university staff, and innovative

pedagogical support are essential features for modern universities’ environment (Gibb and Hannon,

2006). In the present research, we will particularly focus on the university context interpreted as an

important external variable affecting students’ entrepreneurial attitude and intent, thanks to the

6
 provision of entrepreneurial initiation, development, and active support (Franke and Lüthje, 2004;

Souitaris et al., 2007).

3. Hypotheses development

3.1. The Role of the Entrepreneurial University

Today we are witnessing an extension of the entrepreneurship education field with a progressive

focus on educational initiatives, particularly at the university level (Clark, 1998; 2001; Etzkowitz,

2003). In fact, it is widely acknowledged that some aspects of entrepreneurship can be taught (Autio

et al., 2001; Johnson et al., 2006; Vesper and Gartner, 1997). Spending in entrepreneurship
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education is one of the most productive investments that Europe can make; by receiving

entrepreneurial education, young people have the opportunity to develop entrepreneurship

knowledge, skills, and attitudes to transform ideas into action, thus improving their employability

chances (European Commission, 2011; see also Fitzsimmons and Douglas, 2011; Liñán and Chen,

2009). As recently stressed (Heinonen and Poikkijoki, 2006; Rodrigues, 2004; Shane et al., 2003),

this knowledge, skills and competencies represent key resources to enable individuals to foster their

entrepreneurship ability and enter more easily into the labour market. This transpires to be

extremely true for students who during their university experience have the opportunity to achieve a

wide and effective entrepreneurship education (Etzkowitz, 2001; Guerrero and Urbano, 2012).

After the understanding of entrepreneurship in universities, experiencing the entrepreneurial process

becomes crucial for students in order to exploit related future opportunities (Heinonen and

Poikkijoki, 2006). In line with this, Rodrigues (2004) stressed the importance of teaching and

learning techniques in business schools, particularly focusing on the impact that students’ cultural

differences have on university programmes’ effectiveness. Franke and Lüthje (2004) found

empirical support for the university environment’s positive influence on students’ entrepreneurial

behaviour, focusing on three dimensions that mostly affect entrepreneurial intent, such as university

initiation, development, and active support for students (see also Souitaris et al., 2007). Hence, an

expression often related to business schools is ‘the making of an entrepreneur’ (Lüthje and Franke,

7
 2003), thus stressing the importance of entrepreneurship education in impacting on students’

attitude and intention to found their own business and hence become self-employed (Autio et al.,

2001; Etzkowitz et al., 2000; Johnson et al., 2006; Robinson et al., 1991). More recently, Turker

and Sonmez Selçuk (2009) found that educational support is one of the most significant predictors

of students’ entrepreneurial intention, arguing that “if a university provides adequate knowledge

and inspiration for entrepreneurship, the possibility of choosing an entrepreneurial career might

increase among young people” (p. 155).

Hence, we propose the following hypotheses:

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Hypothesis 1a: The university environment has a positive impact on students’ entrepreneurial

attitude.

Hypothesis 1b: The university environment has a positive impact on students’ entrepreneurial

intent.

3.2 Risk-taking and locus of control

Modern entrepreneurship education research clearly argues that entrepreneurial intention is

associated with a proactive personality (Crant, 1996; 2000; Thompson, 2009). Crant (2000) defines

proactive behaviour as “taking initiative in improving current circumstances or creating new ones; it

involves challenging the status quo rather than passively adapting to present conditions” (p. 436). In

line with this, Gartner (1990) associates the notion of the entrepreneur with unique personality

characteristics and abilities, among which proactive behaviour is crucial in coping with

uncertainties (Carbonara and Caiazza, 2010) and effectively exploiting opportunities (Shane, 2000).

Within this stream of research, variables such as risk-taking propensity and locus of control have

been traditionally recognized as important proactive attributes fostering entrepreneurship (Crant,

1996; Lüthje and Franke, 2003; Robinson et al., 1991; Shane et al., 2003).

As far as concerns our research, we follow the stream of literature highlighting the crucial role of

risk-taking propensity (Goldberg, 1999; Hmieleski and Corbett, 2006) and locus of control

8
 (Levenson, 1974), specifically focusing on its three sub-dimensions, namely (a) Internal Control,

(b) Powerful Others, and (c) Chance (see also Lumpkin, 1988). Levenson (1974) validated these

scales in order to measure (a) the perceived mastery over one’s personal life and objectives, which

includes the ability to control events and actions, attributing success and failure to ‘internal factors’

directly related to the exercise of individual abilities (Internal Control); (b) the expectation of

control over one’s interests and actions by pressure groups and ‘significant others’, which influence

the individual decision making process (Powerful Others); and (c) a person’s beliefs in chance,

which refers to an individual’s belief that their decisions and life are controlled by fate and
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accidentally affected by environmental factors which they cannot influence (Chance) (see Levenson

1974; Lumpkin, 1988).

Hence, the following hypotheses are proposed:

Hypothesis 2: Risk-taking propensity positively influences students’ entrepreneurial attitude.

Hypothesis 3a: Internal control positively influences students’ entrepreneurial attitude.

Hypothesis 3b: Powerful others positively influences students’ entrepreneurial attitude.

Hypothesis 3c: Chance positively influences students’ entrepreneurial attitude.

3.3 Entrepreneurial attitude and intent

In the entrepreneurship literature, it is generally accepted that entrepreneurial intention plays a key

role in the decision to start a business (Autio et al., 2001; Krueger et al., 2000; Liñán and Chen,

2009). Consistent with this, TPB theorists interpret perceived behavioural control, subjective norm,

and personal attitude as the main predictors of individual intent (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980; see also

Peterman and Kennedy, 2003; Schlaegel and Koenig, 2014). Once applied to the entrepreneurship

field, there is wide recognition that attitude towards self-employment represents one of the main

antecedents of entrepreneurial intent (Franke and Lüthje, 2004; Lüthje and Franke, 2003; Krueger et

al., 2000; Thompson, 2009). Most of the studies on entrepreneurial intention have focused on this

antecedent, since attitude towards self-employment typically explains a large part of the variance of

9
 business foundations’ and entrepreneurial activities’ related behaviour (Franke and Lüthje, 2004;

Heinonen and Poikkijoki, 2006; Lüthje and Franke, 2003; Robinson et al., 1991). In line with this,

Krueger et al. (2000) argue that, since intention is the best predictor of entrepreneurship behaviour,

it is important to understand its antecedents, such as attitude which “successfully predicts

intentions” (p. 416). It emerges that such an argument may be relevant in the case of students,

especially postgraduates, who have been interpreted as “potential entrepreneurs” (Krueger and

Brazeal, 1994) attempting to turn their attitude into actual intentional behaviour. Specifically,

Franke and Lüthje (2004) stress the need to work on students’ entrepreneurial attitude, through
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specific academic programmes and innovative types of pedagogical and educational courses.

Hence, we propose the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 4: Attitude toward self-employment positively influences students’

entrepreneurial intent.

4. Method

The objective of this research is to assess the relationship between the following variables: (a) risk-

taking propensity and locus of control, which were considered as predictor variables, (b) students’

entrepreneurial attitude and entrepreneurial intent, which were considered as mediating and

dependent variables respectively, and (c) students’ perception of environmental factors, which

considered the University of Florence as the contextual factor impacting on students’

entrepreneurial attitude and intent.

4.1. Measures

We employed validated scales used in previous studies to measure the constructs analysed in this

research. Students’ Risk Taking Propensity was assessed using the International Personality Item

Pool (IPIP) (Goldberg, 1999). While the IPIP scale consists of 15 scales that are traditionally used

to describe human personality, we used the ten items related to the Risk-Taking scale, following

10
 Hmieleski and Corbett (2006) who used just such a scale in studying entrepreneurial intentions.

Students’ Locus of Control was assessed using the traditional scale of Levenson (1974) in the

abbreviated form of Lumpkin (1988). The scale consists of nine items classified according to three

dimensions: Internal Control, Powerful Others, and Chance. Students’ Entrepreneurial Attitude was

measured using Lüthje and Franke’s (2003) scale, which consists of three items and is a widely

cited instrument for assessing university entrepreneurship programmes (O’Shea et al., 2005;

Souitaris et al., 2007). Students’ Entrepreneurial Intent was assessed using the recent scale of

Thompson (2009), which consists of six items and has been widely used in assessing
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entrepreneurial intentions (Fitzsimmons and Douglas, 2011) and students’ start-up intentions (Liñán

et al., 2011). Finally, students’ perception of the university environment was assessed using Franke

and Lüthje’s (2004) scale which consists of six items divided into three dimensions: the university’s

ability in Initiation, Development, and Active Support. All the items were rated on a five-point

Likert-type scale from not at all important (1) to extremely important (5). Several items required

reverse scoring and values were averaged for a possible range of 1 to 5.

For each of the main dimensions – risk taking propensity, locus of control, entrepreneurial attitude,

entrepreneurial intent, university – a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted using the

SPSS module AMOS v. 22 (Arbuckle, 2013). AMOS is a CFA and SEM statistical software widely

used in social science analysis; SEM is a statistical technique for testing simultaneously a set of

regression equations (Hair et al., 2006). The maximum likelihood function of AMOS was used to

estimate parameters and test the four hypotheses illustrated in Figure 1 (Bagozzi and Yi, 1988).

Firstly, a measurement model was built containing observed variables, also named ‘indicators’, and

unobserved variables, named ‘latent’ variables, in order to assess goodness-of-fit, validity,

reliability, and correlations of the model (Bentler, 1990); second, a structural model was built to

assess both the values of standardized item loadings and the hypothesized path coefficients existing

between the constructs (Bagozzi and Yi, 1988; Hu and Bentler, 1999).

11
 4.2. Sample

The sampling frame consisted of students of the Master in Business Administration and

Management (MBA) at the University of Florence (Region of Tuscany, Italy). According to Davies

(1998) the University of Florence has an ancient tradition dating back to the Early Renaissance

period and, being established in 1321, is one of the 15 oldest existing universities in continuous

operation in the world. According to Davies, “Given its historical significance and the unparalleled

richness of its archives and libraries, Florence has long been the focus of intensive research” (1998,

p. 2), thus surrounding its university with a social, economic, and political context which has given
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rise to one of the most important European cultural developments of the 14th and 15th centuries.

Today, the University of Florence is progressively focusing on the third mission of knowledge and

technology transfer, mainly thanks to the “University Incubator of Florence” (IUF) implemented in

2010. The IUF has supported about 500 young researchers in the development of more than 90

entrepreneurial projects, resulting in the creation of 31 academic spin-offs. Hence, the University of

Florence is increasingly becoming a crucial actor in linking the academic entrepreneurial model and

the regional socio-economic fabric, thanks to the creation of research labs, job orientation and

placement services, patent and intellectual properties offices, and high-innovative start-ups.

Specifically concerning the latter service, the University of Florence has created in 2013 the

“University Entrepreneurial Campus”, an academic project aimed at supporting graduates during

the initial phase of the start-ups development, focusing on the supervision by experts of the

enterprise’s business and governance model, business plan, and economic feasibility. Moreover, the

University of Florence MBA curriculum is particularly focused on fostering students’

entrepreneurship, thanks to courses centred on technology innovation and entrepreneurial

development taught by both professors and management practitioners.

An electronic questionnaire which included 32 items was developed in early 2016. Initially, the

questionnaire was pretested by a university student jury made up of 25 respondents who were not

included in the final sample, in order to check for precision of vocabulary, ease of completion, and

12
 possible ambiguity. After the pretest, no substantive change was made to the final questionnaire,

which was addressed to MBA students and mailed from March to April to 600 students. Data

collection yielded a usable sample of 272, implying a response rate of 45.33% (Baruch, 1999). As

highlighted in the covering letter of the questionnaire, students’ participation was voluntary,

anonymous, every student was given the opportunity to decline participation, and no compensation

was provided. A summary of the sample characteristics is illustrated in Table 1.

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Final data analysis was completed on a sample of 153 women (56.3%) and 119 men (43.8%). The

majority of the students were in the age range of 24-26 (55.5%), came from Florence (44.5%), and

attended the MBA curriculum of General Management (32.4%). As illustrated in Table 2, the

majority of the students’ parents were not self-employed (62.5%) and almost all students were not

currently self-employed (96%). The respondents were planning to become entrepreneurs primarily

in the consulting (24.9%) and tourism/hospitality sectors (20.2%).

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Insert Table 2 about here
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In Table 3 the scales and item descriptive statistics are provided.

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The scales used in the research present good reliability, ranging from 0.68 to 0.88, except for

Powerful Others (α=0.48) and Chance (α=0.45) which present unsatisfactory Cronbach alpha

values. Since the literature suggests considering as acceptable only values of alpha above 0.6 (Hair

et al., 2006; Loewenthal, 2001), we did not consider these two variables in the following SEM

13
 analysis. As a result, the only sub-dimension of Locus of Control taken into consideration was

Internal Control (α=0.70).

It is interesting to see how, with respect to recent literature findings (Franke and Lüthje, 2004),

Tuscan students present the following characteristics (see Table 4).

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The results of the correlation analysis of scale items are illustrated in Table 5.
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Insert Table 5 about here
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The bivariate correlation analysis indicated that significant and high Pearson r values are related to

relationships between risk-taking propensity and entrepreneurial attitude (r = 0.344), risk-taking

propensity and entrepreneurial intent (r = 0.439), and entrepreneurial attitude and entrepreneurial

intent (r = 0.510).

5. Analysis and results

5.1. Measurement model

The goodness-of-fit measures were examined to verify the acceptable parsimony of the analysed

model (Bagozzi and Yi, 1988; Bentler, 1990). Firstly, absolute fit indexes were measured in order

to assess the overall goodness-of-fit of the hypothesized model (Bagozzi and Yi, 1988). The chi-

square statistics of the model is significant (χ2 = 497.881 p < 0.01) and the relative chi-square

suggests a good fit with a T-test of χ2 / df = 1.537 (lower than 3 as required) (Bentler, 1990). The

‘Goodness of Fit Index’ (GFI) measures the fit between the hypothesized model and the covariance

matrix of the observed variables, suggesting values approaching 0.90 for acceptable model fit (Hu

and Bentler, 1999). The GFI of the model (0.890) and the related ‘Adjusted Goodness of Fit Index’

(AGFI) (0.857) suggest an acceptable model fit. The ‘Root Mean Square Error of Approximation’

14
 (RMSEA), which measures the fitting of the tested model with the population covariance matrix

(Hooper et al., 2008), suggests an adequate fit (0.045) below the value of 0.05 as required (Hu and

Bentler, 1999).

A second category of indexes refers to the relative fit indexes, which examine the discrepancy

between the chi-square values of the hypothesized model and a standard model used as a parameter

(Bentler, 1990). The most commonly used are the ‘Comparative Fit Index’ (CFI), the ‘Incremental

Fit Index’ (IFI), and the ‘Normed Fit Index’ (NFI) (Bentler, 1990). According to Hu and Bentler

(1999), CFI, IFI and NFI above 0.95 are good. Our hypothesized model indicates acceptable fit
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indexes (CFI = 0.930; IFI = 0.932; NFI = 0.830). The overall fit indexes of the model suggest an

acceptable model fit.

The measurement model showed that all the path coefficients between the indicators and the latent

variable were significant (p < 0.01).

5.2. Structural model

AMOS was used for estimating the hypothesized structural relationships among students’ Risk

Taking Propensity, Locus of Control (namely the sub-dimension of Internal Control),

Entrepreneurial Attitude, Entrepreneurial Intent, and University (see Figure 2).

---------------------------------------
Insert Figure 2 about here
---------------------------------------

Examination of the paths’ coefficients indicates that students’ perception of the environmental

context, which was assessed using the University variable, significantly influenced their

Entrepreneurial Attitude (β = +0.18; p < 0.01) and Entrepreneurial Intent (β = +0.11; p < 0.01), thus

statistically supporting Hypotheses 1a and 1b. Students’ Risk Taking Propensity represents a strong

influence of Entrepreneurial Attitude, with a Beta of +0.55 (p < 0.01), thus statistically supporting

Hypothesis 2. Concerning students’ locus of control, Internal Control significantly influences

15
 Entrepreneurial Attitude (β = +0.43; p < 0.01), thus providing statistical support for Hypothesis 3a.

As stressed before, Hypotheses 2b and 2b were not tested since Powerful Others and Chance were

not considered in the SEM analysis due to their non-acceptable level of internal reliability. Finally,

the highest relationship was between students’ Entrepreneurial Attitude and Entrepreneurial Intent,

showing a very strong influence (β = +0.69; p < 0.01) and providing statistical support for

Hypothesis 4.

6. Discussion
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The objective of this study was to analyse the situation of an emblematic Italian entrepreneurial

university – the University of Florence – with regard to entrepreneurship education and

postgraduate students’ entrepreneurial attitude and intent. In order to do that, we compared our

empirical results with previous research (see Franke and Lüthje, 2004; Lüthje and Franke, 2003)

concerning students’ entrepreneurial intent in both European universities, such as Munich and

Vienna, and the paradigmatic excellence of the MIT in Cambridge, MA (Etzkowitz et al., 2000;

O’Shea et al., 2005). We found that entrepreneurial attitudes among the University of Florence

students (M = 2.26; SD = 0.73) are much lower than those of their counterparts in the European

(e.g. Munich: M = 3.01; SD = 0.64) and American universities (M = 3.15; SD = 0.66). Surprisingly,

this is not consistent with prior findings that revealed similar entrepreneurial attitude levels

distributed in both European (e.g. Munich and Vienna) and American (e.g. MIT) universities

(Franke and Lüthje, 2004). Instead, such a difference becomes less with respect to entrepreneurial

intent, where Italian students’ intentions to become self-employed (M = 2.27; SD = 0.93) are only

slightly lower with respect to European (e.g. Vienna: M = 2.74; SD = 0.84) and MIT students (M =

2.46; SD = 0.97). Actually, approximately one third of the Italian students intended to become self-

employed after graduation (28.26%), a percentage similar to their European counterparts (Munich

25.4%; Vienna 36.2%) but much lower than the MIT students (49.6%). Intriguingly, the Italian

students’ perception of the university environment (M = 2.36; SD = 0.80) was similar to that of the

16
 MIT students (M = 2.53; SD = 0.92) but much lower with respect to German students’ perceptions

(M = 3.36; SD = 0.88). From these results it emerges that the main criticality affecting student

entrepreneurship in the University of Florence refers to their entrepreneurial attitude and,

consequently, to the level of predicting variables, such as willingness to take risk (M = 2.52; SD =

0.64) and locus of control (M = 2.99; SD = 0.48) – much lower, for example, with respect to their

MIT counterparts which show higher levels of both risk propensity (M = 3.62; SD = 0.78) and locus

of control (M = 3.74; SD = 0.65). This means that, compared to their European and American

counterparts, the University of Florence students do not fully believe in their proactive ability to
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control the environment, which is a crucial entrepreneurial personality predisposition (Crant, 1996;

2000). Specifically, these results are in line with research by Lüthje and Franke (2003), who argue

that “If public policy and university administration want to raise the number of graduates who

decide to start their own business, an improvement of the students’ attitude towards

entrepreneurship apparently is an effective lever” (p. 142).

Moreover, nearly half of the Italian sample showed entrepreneurial intention in the consulting and

tourism/hospitality lines of business (45.1%). Such results confirm previous researches (Franke and

Lüthje, 2004; Lüthje and Franke, 2003) which found services and secondary sectors to be the

predominant target industries in European universities, compared to high-tech and software sectors,

which are rarely taken into consideration – in complete opposition to the American students’

intentions. Hence, Italian students’ entrepreneurial intentions are less ambitious compared to their

European and American counterparts. Finally, it has to be noted that more than one third of our

sample expressed indecision about entrepreneurial plans after graduation (34.5%), thus stressing the

strong need for intervention that has to be made in the Italian context.

Regarding the proposed hypotheses, the highest significant influence refers to the relationship

between students’ entrepreneurial attitude and intent (β = 0.69; p < 0.01). Such a result was almost

expected, since students’ attitude refers to the ‘entrepreneurial potential’ (Krueger and Brazeal,

1994) of future entrepreneurs that will be expressed in actual behaviour. The variable expressing

17
 risk-taking propensity assumes a significant role in our analysis, being recognized as one of the

main predictors of students’ entrepreneurial attitude (Crant, 1996; Shane et al., 2003). Such a strong

relationship (β = 0.55; p < 0.01) stresses the importance of students’ ambition, courage, and

opportunity-driven inclination, all of which define typical entrepreneurial behaviour. Actually,

decision-making inevitably implies risk, especially in modern markets characterized by high

competitiveness and continuously changing and unpredictable scenarios. The second variable that

significantly influences students’ entrepreneurial attitude refers to their internal control (β = 0.43; p

< 0.01) – as a sub-dimension of the locus of control variable – which highlights students’ ability to
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control events thanks to their own skills, and attributing successes and failures to individual internal

factors (Lumpkin, 1988; Rotter, 1966). Hence, students’ personal abilities, skills, and risk

propensity mostly affect their entrepreneurial attitude, which in turn highly influences

entrepreneurial intent. Interestingly, the contextual variable expressed by the University of Florence

slightly influences students’ attitude (β = 0.18; p < 0.01) and intention (β = 0.11; p < 0.01). In line

with pertinent literature (Lüthje and Franke, 2003), these results allow us to confirm the main

hypotheses of the present research: students’ intentions of becoming self-employed are influenced

directly by contextual factors – namely the University – and indirectly by personality traits.

However, following recent research by Franke and Lüthje (2004), we argue that the University of

Florence could pay more attention to students’ entrepreneurial propensity “by organizing the

entrepreneurship-related environment more positively” (p. 18). Specifically, the University of

Florence should better support students by improving the three main contextual elements

investigated in the present research: i.e. (a) University Initiation, which means creating an

inspirational atmosphere able to help students develop entrepreneurial ideas; (b) University

Development, which refers to organizing courses that provide entrepreneurial knowledge,

leadership skills, and multi-disciplinary student teams; and (c) University Active Support, which

actively promotes the process of founding a new business thanks to a strong network of investors.

Actually, University of Florence students showed low levels of perceptions of these contextual

18
 elements, ranging from a mean of 2.0 (Active Support) to 2.6 (Initiation), clearly showing the need

to improve the university’s contextual support in student entrepreneurship. As stressed by recent

research, entrepreneurial universities’ programmes have to prepare students to handle uncertain and

unpredictable situations, reflecting the actual modern economic scenario, thus involving students in

real entrepreneurial decision making processes; that is why “a set of courses and practical

applications can be organized that will set them on the path to firm formation” (Etzkowitz, 2003, p.

111; see also Franke and Lüthje, 2004).

Finally, it is worth noting the important implications that our evidence suggests at the macro level.
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As previously stressed, the crucial role of the entrepreneurial academic model in fostering economic

growth, social development, cohesion, and innovation among universities, state and market in a

specific geographical area, has been widely stressed in the literature (Caiazza and Ferrara, 2016;

Clark, 2001; Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 2000). Since students are a promising source of future

business venture creators and the next generation of entrepreneurs (Lüthje and Franke, 2003),

supporting their entrepreneurial intent, attitude, and personality is one of the main elements of

universities’ third mission (Etzkowitz, 2003). This has a significant regional consequence, locally

impacting on both the employability level and the growth of the labour market (European

Commission, 2011). Such an argument acquires particular relevance in an area such as the Region

of Tuscany, where the University of Florence is increasingly becoming a crucial actor in the socio-

economic fabric development and innovation. We believe our findings represent a useful starting

point for improving the university’s effectiveness in student entrepreneurship within a scarcely

investigated geographical area.

7. Limitations and recommendations for future research

Our paper suffers from some limitations, firstly because we assess entrepreneurship intent only in

one business school’s department, namely the MBA of the University of Florence. It could be

interesting to test our proposed hypotheses in different departments of the University of Florence,

19
 for example political science, architecture, literature, and communications studies, which are

characterized by scarce job placement opportunities, thus implying the need for students to develop

entrepreneurial skills and competences for applying their know-how in different contexts. In

addition to this, we focus our analysis on postgraduate students obtaining a response rate of

45.33%, which is below the average range of the educational sector (57.6%) (Baruch, 1999, p. 431).

Another limitation refers to the possibility of common method variance (Podsakoff et al., 2003),

which is a usual concern in self-reported research when all variables are gathered from the same

resource, thus implying possible distorting relationships. Finally, we only considered two important
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personality traits that affect entrepreneurial attitude and intent, namely risk-taking propensity and

locus of control. However, other significant factors should be included in future researches, for

example the need for achievement and the need for independence, which are traditionally

interpreted as direct predictors of entrepreneurial attitude and, in turn, indirect predictors of

entrepreneurial intent (Franke and Lüthje, 2004). In addition to this, future researches could assess

how the other two predictors of intention according to TPB – perceived behavioural control and

subjective norm (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980) – actually influence students’ entrepreneurial intent.

20
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 Figure 1. Summary of hypothesized relationships.

University

H1a (+) H1b (+)

Risk
Taking
Propensity
Entrepreneurial
H2 (+) Entrepreneurial
Attitude
H4 (+) Intent
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H3a (+) H3b (+) H3c (+)

Internal Powerful
Chance
Control Others
 Figure 2. Summary of measurement and structural relationships.
UNI2 UNI3
RISK1 UNI1 UNI4
0.78 (1.93)* 0.71 (1.58)*
0.51 (1.04)* 0.77 (1.97)* 0.57 (1.32)*

RISK2 UNI5
0.47 (0.87)* 0.65 (1.32)*
University
RISK3 UNI6
0.69 (1.35)* ATT2 0.55 (1.00)*

RISK4 0.43 (0.66)* 0.11 (0.15)*

ATT3
0.43 (1.18)* ATT1
Risk 0.52 (0.69)* 0.18 (0.26)*
RISK5 Taking 0.57 (1.00)* INT1
Propensity
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0.81 (1.00)*
0.36 (1.45)*
Entrepreneurial
INT2
RISK6 0.55 (0.77)* Entrepreneurial Intent
Attitude 0.69 (0.87)*
0.64 (0.85)*
0.79 0.67 (0.87)*
0.52
INT3
RISK7
0.69 (0.76)*
0.40 (0.95)*

INT4
RISK8
0.55 (0.71)*
0.67 (1.33)*

RISK9 0.43 (0.63)* INT5

0.74 (0.99)*
0.38 (0.87)*

RISK10 INT6
Internal
Control 0.89 (1.06)*
0.49 (1.00)*

CH1
0.64 (1.19)*

IC2
0.58 (1.12)*
IC3
0.48 (1.00)*

Chi-square 516.400 df 330 Relative Chi-square 1.565

GFI 0.900 AGFI 0.860 RMSEA 0.046

CFI 0.925 IFI 0.930 NFI 0.820

*p < .01

Standardized estimates presented (Unstandardized estimates in parentheses)

Dotted lines indicate non significant relationships

 Table 1. Sample Characteristics

Variable Frequency Valid Percent

Gender

- Male 119 43.8%

- Female 153 56.3%

Age

- 18-20 1 0.4%
- 21-23 65 23.9%
- 24-26 151 55.5%
- 27-30 39 14.3%
- 31-35 13 4.8%
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- Over 35 3 1.1%

Tuscan Province

- Arezzo 27 9.9%
- Florence 121 44.5%
- Grosseto 4 1.5%
- Livorno 4 1.5%
- Lucca 4 1.5%
- Massa Carrara 0 0.0%
- Pisa 0 0.0%
- Pistoia 23 8.5%
- Prato 49 18.0%
- Siena 2 0.7%
- Other 38 14.0%

MBA Curriculum

- Marketing 38 14.0%
- Management 88 32.4%
- Human Resource Management 3 1.1%
- Accounting 40 14.7%
- Finance and Risk Management 5 1.8%
- Economics 41 15.1%
- Design of sustainable tourism systems 19 7.0%
- Development Economics 21 7.7%
- Statistics 6 2.2%
- Other 11 4.0%
 Table 2. Descriptive statistics of students’ entrepreneurial activities and future plans
Entrepreneurial activities during studies
Are you currently self-
employed?
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No= 95.8% Yes= 4.2%
What line of business?
Primary sector = 6.7%
Secondary sector = 30.0%
High-tech/software= 10.0%
Consulting = 6.7%
Tourism/Hospitality = 10.0%
Other = 36.7%
Entrepreneurial plans after graduation
Do you plan to be self-
employed after graduation?
No=23.8%
Very improbable=13.0%
Undecided=34.5%
Yes=17.6%
Very probable=11.1%
What line of business?
Primary sector = 11.9%
Secondary sector = 19.7%
High-tech/software = 7.3%
Consulting =24.9%
Tourism/Hospitality = 20.2%
Other = 16.1%
 Table 3. Scales and item descriptive statistics
Scale Mean SD α
Item

A) Risk taking propensity

0.79
- Enjoy being reckless 1.8 0.9

- Take risks 3.3 0.9

- Seek danger 2.0 1.0

- Know how to get around the rules 2.1 1.1

- Am willing to try anything once 3.4 1.2

- Seek adventure 3.0 1.1

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- Would never go hang-gliding or bungee-jumping (R) 2.7 1.5

- Would never make a high risk investment (R) 2.4 1.0

- Stick to the rules (R) 2.0 1.1

- Avoid dangerous situations (R) 2.5 1.0

B) Locus of control
B1) Internal Control
0.70

- When I make plans. I am almost certain to make them 3.4 1.0

work
- When I get what I want. it's usually because I worked 4.2 0.9
hard for it
- My life is determined by my own actions 3.8 0.9

B2) Powerful Others 0.48

- My life is chiefly controlled by powerful others 2.0 1.0

- People like myself have very little chance of protecting

our personal interests where they conflict with those of
strong pressure groups 3.1 1.2

- Getting what I want requires pleasing those people 3.1 1.0

above me
0.45
B3) Chance

- I have often found that what is going to happen will 3.4 1.0
happen
- When I get what I want. it's actually because I'm lucky 2.1 0.9

- To a great extent. my life is controlled by accidental 2.0 0.9

happenings
 C) Entrepreneurial Attitude 0.68

- I’d rather be my own boss than have a secure job 2.7 1.2

- You can only make big money if you are self-employed 1.8 0.8

- I’d rather found a new company than be the manager of 2.3 1.1
an existing one

D) Entrepreneurial Intent 0.88

- Intend to set up a company in the future 2.9 1.2

- Never search for business start-up opportunities (R) 2.4 1.2

- Are saving money to start a business 1.8 1.0

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- Do not read books on how to set up a firm(R) 2.0 1.2

- Have no plans to launch your own business (R) 2.3 1.2

- Spend time learning about starting a firm 2.2 1.2

E) University 0.84
E1) Initiation
- The creative atmosphere inspires us to develop ideas
2.6 1.2
for new businesses

E2) Development
- The courses foster the social and leadership skills
2.5 1.2
needed by entrepreneurs

- The courses provide students with the knowledge

2.3 1.1
required to start a new company

- My university supports building multi-disciplinary

2.5 1.1
student teams

E3) Active Support

- The university actively promotes the process of
2.3 1.0
founding a new company

- The university provides a strong network of new

venture investors 2.0 0.9
 Table 4. Comparison with different geographical contexts

University Risk Locus of Control Attitude Intent University

M SD n M SD n M SD n M SD n M SD

Florence 2.52 0.64 272 2.99 0.48 272 2.26 0.73 272 2.27 0.93 272 2.36 0.80

MIT* 3.62 0.78 147 3.74 0.65 147 3.15 0.66 143 2.46 0.97 147 2.53 0.92

Vienna* 3.40 0.75 466 - - - - - - 2.74 0.84 408 - -

Munich* 3.41 0.69 311 3.59 0.61 311 3.01 0.64 310 2.84 0.75 295 3.36 0.88
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* Source: Frank and Lüthje (2004)

Table 5. Correlation matrix of latent dimensions

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Risk-taking 1

Chance/opportunity (LoC) 0.276** 1

Powerful others (LoC) 0.268** 0.242** 1

Internal control (LoC) 0.131* 0.410** 0.095 1

Entrepreneurial Attitude 0.344** 0.122* 0.251** 0.072 1

Entrepreneurial Intent 0.439** 0.121* 0.362** 0.079 0.510** 1

University 0.140* 0.118 0.204** 0.044 0.240** 0.265** 1

** p < 0.01

* p < 0.05

LoC: Locus of Control