Entrepreneurial Career Aspirations Among IPTA Students

Abstract

The objective of this research was to identify the students entrepreneurial career aspirations in the public instituitions of higher education. The research also was designed to determine the factors that influence the entrepreneurial career aspirations of the students. A set of questionaires were distributed to 420 respondents from three universities namely, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Islamic International University of Malaysia and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. The findings showed majority of the students were not interested to become entrepreneur eventhough more than 80 percent of them have positive attitude towards entrereneurship. Profit-orientation factor and the needs to have a successful life are the dominant factors that influenced the students towards entrepreneurial career. However, the entrepreneurial characteristics of the students was high, except for the willingness to take risks. The finding also showed that there are a positive and significant correlations between entrepreneurial characteristics, interest towards entrepreneurial career and attitude towards students entrepreneurial career aspirations. These findings concluded that races, educational fields and family members are considered as the factors that contributed to the students entrepreneurial career aspirations. Based on the findings, several ways are suggested to inspire the entrepreneurial career among the students in the public higher education. Therefore, the students, the universities, lecturers, the ministry, parents and the public are resposible in realizing and believing that the entrepreneurial career is a career option once graduated.