Meltem Mutluturk, Sona Mardikyan
Each individual, at some point in their lives, has faced the dilemma of whether or not to become their own boss or work for someone else. With the rapid change of the business environment due to the rapid enhancement of technology, higher education is no longer a significant element in employment. In order to meet the evolving needs of employers, individuals, specifically students need to acquire more entrepreneurial tendencies. The aim of this study is to investigate the factors affecting the individual entrepreneurial orientation (IEO) of university students. In order to do so, five constructs (IEO, self-efficacy, perceived educational support, perceived relational support, perceived structural support were used within the proposed model and the constructed hypotheses were evaluated using structural equation modelling (SEM).
The findings showed that self-efficacy is the most influencing factor on students’ IEO. It is suggested that perceived educational and perceived structural support have an indirect effect instead of a direct effect on IEO. The effects of these constructs on IEO were found to be mediated by self-efficacy.