Estimating the Choice of Entrepreneurship as a Career: The Case of Universiti Utara Malaysia

ABSTRACTUsing of the case of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM), this study aims to estimate the factors that influence the entrepreneurship career choice among UUM students and graduates, in particular, the effect of educational factor on the probability that a graduate will choose entrepreneurship as his or her career. Results of descriptive statistics reveal that the tendency of choosing entrepreneurship as career is high among the sample and it is associated with gender, ethnic groups, degree, CGPA and family entrepreneurship experiences. Nevertheless, the estimated Multinomial Logit model indicates that the significant factors are entrepreneur education, family entrepreneurship experiences and economic factor (proxy by intention to start a business upon graduation). The significant of educational factor implies that the educated entrepreneur can be cultivated and this empirical result supports the current policy of Malaysia government to grow the graduate entrepreneur through education. The findings of this paper suggest that entrepreneurship should be viewed as an important career choice among the university students and graduates. This career choice is seen as a choice that could improve the economy performance, particularly to the labor market because the entrepreneurship activity is able to create more jobs and prosperous.Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Career Choice; Multinomial Logit Model. (ProQuest: . denotes formulae omitted.)1. INTRODUCTIONEmpowered with a combination of skills, motivation, ideas and opportunities, undergraduate students (or graduates) are expected to be more than able to establish productive and creative in entrepreneurial activities. Entrepreneurship will also able to change them from being "job seeker" to "job creator". Entrepreneurship is also crucial in changing people from being socially dependent to self-sufficient. Moreover, many self-employed graduates' also contribute to the upkeep of their families, sometimes playing the role of breadwinners.The concept and meaning of entrepreneurship is changing and becoming complex due the change in the economic environment and social interpretation. For instance, since the financial crisis of 1997 the graduate unemployment problem in Malaysia is increasing and persistent (Lim, Rich & Harris, 2008); and in this context, the career choice of entrepreneurship (i.e., being self-employed) is showing its significance in solving the graduate unemployment problem.According to the published employment statistics on 2011, the number of employment in Malaysia has increased. However, the number of unemployment also increased to 421,800 persons (January 2011) compared to 387,900 persons (January 2010). The unemployment rate is remaining unchanged at 3.4 percent in 2010 and January 2011 (Department of Statistics Malaysia, 2011). Relating to the employment status of graduates in Malaysia, the Tracer Study of year 2010 conducted by the Ministry of Higher Education of Malaysia (MoHE) found that the employed graduates are 50.4 percent, furthering studies 16.6 percent, graduate who are in developing skills is about 1.4 percent, waiting for work placement about 7 percent and graduates who are unemployed are 24.6 percent (Table 1). In terms of number, there are 42, 944 unemployed graduates.In this context, involvement in the entrepreneurial activity could be one of the best strategies to overcome the graduate unemployment problem. In addition, it will increase the economic performance in this country. As suggested by Kupets (2006), unemployment among the fresh graduates is increasing in the current economic environment and to overcome the unemployment problem, universities are seen to be playing a leading role in the development of student entrepreneurs. For instance, introducing entrepreneurship courses to equip the students with the skills, values, and behavior to undertake business endeavours successfully in the future. …