IT Entrepreneurial Intention Among College Students: An Empirical Study

1. INTRODUCTION Entrepreneurship plays a key role in economic development and job creation. Entrepreneurs not only incubate technological innovation, but also create employment opportunities and competitiveness (Zahra, 1999). Entrepreneurship is prominent in technology industries where technology innovation creates many new businesses and jobs. Information Technology (IT) is one of the most popular industries that rapidly incubate entrepreneurs. In addition, many entrepreneurs have used IT as tools to create many businesses in a variety of industries. A large number of companies have been created by IT entrepreneurs including college students and graduates. Many IT entrepreneurs have founded world-class businesses such as Dell.com, Facebook.com, Microsoft.com, and Google.com. Today, IT, as the fundamental business infrastructure for business operations and new business enabler, has attracted many college students majoring in business, computer science, or engineering to become IT entrepreneurs. College students are well educated and technologically savvy and many college students are interested in exploring business ventures in technology. Studying IT entrepreneurship among college students, thus, should be an important research agenda in business practice and education. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), "an entrepreneur is a person who organizes and manages a business undertaking, assuming the risk for the sake of profit" (http://www.sba.gov). Many entrepreneurs use their IT skills to create businesses that deliver goods or services in a variety of business areas or industrial sectors. Therefore, this study views IT entrepreneurs as the people who use information technologies to create businesses. According to this definition, although many IT entrepreneurs work in IT-related industries, they are not limited to the IT industry. For example, IT entrepreneurs have created online stores, insurance services, social media, and consulting firms. Compared to entrepreneurs in traditional industries such as food, restaurant, retail, tourism, and manufacturing, IT entrepreneurs are more knowledgeable, technology-dependent, and personally innovative (Yli-Renko, Autio, and Sapienza, 2001; Oakey, 2003). IT entrepreneurs usually start businesses with their technological skills, intellectual property (e.g., patents and licensing), or new business models. Although entrepreneurship research has existed for several decades, there is a lack of research on IT entrepreneurship in academia, and particularly in the study of IT entrepreneurship behavior. Thus, this study believes that filling this research gap will contribute to both academia and practice. From an educational perspective, understanding students' academic and career choice intentions (e.g., entrepreneurial intention) would help educators tailor their curriculum designs to meet students' unique academic demands and future career preparation. For example, by understanding students' entrepreneurial intentions, IS educators could provide special mentoring programs for those who have strong entrepreneurial intentions and help them understand better the business implications of technology, such as, business opportunities and risks. IS educators could also develop better curriculum that integrates students' technology skill development into their future business practices. In addition, with a knowledge of entrepreneurship, IS students can understand better how IT creates business value and can motivate themselves to transform technology innovation into market opportunity. The purpose of this study is two-fold. First, this study aims to understand entrepreneurial behavior in the IT context --IT entrepreneurial behavior. In particular, this study empirically investigates college student IT entrepreneurial intention as well as its antecedents. Based on the social cognitive career theory (SCCT) (Lent, Brown, and Hackett, 1994), this study examines how computer self-efficacy, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, social influence, and expected outcomes determine IT entrepreneurial intention. …