CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.2 Literature Review
2.2.3 A Study on Entrepreneurial Willingness of College Students
Yinxuan built a model based on entrepreneurial cognition theory and found that entrepreneurial self-efficacy played a partial mediating role in the relationship between creative personality and entrepreneurial willingness (Y. Tang & Zhang, 2018).
5) Research on the relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy, entrepreneurial willingness, and entrepreneurial performance
The relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial willingness has always been a hot topic for scholars. Scholars such as Pu Mingzhe analyzed the impact of migrant workers’ entrepreneurial self-efficacy on their urban entrepreneurial willingness. The results show that the stronger the self- efficacy of resource acquisition and risk management, the higher the willingness of urban entrepreneurship of migrant workers (Pu et al., 2016). Xiaoqing took college students from both sides of the Taiwan Straits as the survey object and showed that entrepreneurial self-efficacy of college students from both mainland and Taiwan would have a positive impact on their entrepreneurial willingness (X. Li, 2017).Yang Yue found that entrepreneurial self-efficacy had a positive impact on entrepreneurial willingness through a survey of 316 college students in Sichuan Province (Y. Yang, Wan, & Qiao, 2018).
Su (2018) conducted a study on Chinese entrepreneurs and confirmed that entrepreneurs with high entrepreneurial self-efficacy can show the best state in the development of enterprises and promote the healthy development of enterprises.
Yi Zhaohui, based on entrepreneur traits and social cognition theory, took 317 small and micro technology-based enterprises in Changsha, Hunan Province as objects, and confirmed that entrepreneurial self-efficacy had a positive impact on entrepreneurial orientation (Yi et al., 2018).
2.2.3 A Study on Entrepreneurial Willingness of College Students
evaluation of entrepreneurial behavior. Willingness reflects an individual’s motivation to put conscious plans or decisions into action. Entrepreneurial willingness is a mental state in which individual attention and behavior are directed towards self-employment rather than organizational employment (Souitaris, Zerbinati, & Laham, 2007).
Attitude, as an important determinant of willingness, appears in many kinds of literature, especially represented by Ice Ajzen’s famous theory of planned behavior (TPB). Ajzenl believes that the three main attitude prediction willingness are the attitude towards the outcome of behavior, the perception of social norms, and the perception of behavior control. This model has been repeatedly applied in various fields of research (Lavelle, 2021).
There have been some controversies about how to define the concept of entrepreneurial willingness in academic circles. In addition, due to the different expressions of “entrepreneurial willingness” by different scholars, some similar concepts such as “entrepreneurial inclination”, “entrepreneurial willingness” and
“entrepreneurial motivation” emerge at the historical moment. Through the literature review, it is found that the definition of entrepreneurial willingness is relatively vague, and the meanings expressed by these people all have something in common.
Therefore, when summarizing the concept and dimension of entrepreneurial willingness, this study will also consider relevant research results such as
“entrepreneurial inclination”, “entrepreneurial willingness”, “entrepreneurial motivation” and so on.
The concept of entrepreneurial willingness was first put forward by Bird in the early stage. He believes that entrepreneurial willingness is an individual’s mental state of preparing to obtain the satisfaction of achieving a specific goal (Bird, 1988). On this basis, Edgar Izquierdo further put forward the concept of entrepreneurial willingness. He believes that entrepreneurial willingness is one of the best indicators to measure entrepreneurs or potential entrepreneurs, and it is a general description of the characteristics and abilities of potential entrepreneurs. It is generally believed that the stronger the entrepreneurial willingness is, the greater the possibility of the individual’s entrepreneurial behavior is (Edgar & Marc, 2008). The main body of entrepreneurial willingness is the entrepreneur or the potential entrepreneur. As a key index, the degree of entrepreneurial willingness has a direct impact on whether
(potential) entrepreneurs choose to implement entrepreneurial behavior. Based on the relevant research results of previous scholars, and in order to have a better understanding of the concept of entrepreneurial willingness, this paper will make a summary of the introduction of relevant concepts of entrepreneurial willingness by previous scholars, as shown in Table 2.12:
Table 2.12 The Concept of Entrepreneurial Willingness
Year The Author The Concept of Entrepreneurial Willingness 1988 Bird A state of mind that directs the entrepreneur’s
attention, energy, and behavior toward a specific goal.
1993 Krueger Carsrud
Entrepreneurs identify the conditions needed to start a business, so as to realize the drive of
entrepreneurial behavior. (Krueger & Carsrud, 1993).
1999 Conner Armitage
Potential entrepreneurs’ motivation to put conscious plans into action. (Conner & Armitage, 1999).
2005 Davidsson Survival entrepreneurship refers to entrepreneurship that is undertaken because there is no employment opportunity or is not satisfied with the current employment options. Opportunistic entrepreneurship is to pursue more valuable business opportunities.
(Davidsson, 2005).
2006 Fan Wei Chongming Wang
It is not only the subjective attitude of individuals engaged in entrepreneurial activities, but also one of the evaluation indicators of individual
entrepreneurial strength.
2009 Minglei Ding Fang Yang Yunfeng Wang
What a potential entrepreneur must have in order to actually engage in entrepreneurship.
2010 Dandan Jian It is used to describe individuals’ psychological
Year The Author The Concept of Entrepreneurial Willingness Jinyun Duan
Yuelong Zhu
readiness for entrepreneurship and reflects it in different forms. (Jian, Duan, & Zhu, 2010).
2015 Wei Chen The degree to which a person is expected to go from being a potential entrepreneur to being an actual entrepreneur. (W. Chen, 2015).
2) Entrepreneurial Willingness Dimension
At present, there is still no clear conclusion on the dimension of entrepreneurial willingness in academic circles. Ding Minglei believes that entrepreneurial willingness has only one dimension (M. Ding, Yang, & Wang, 2009a). Zhi, L. Has a different view. He divided entrepreneurial willingness into three dimensions, including entrepreneurial behavior tendency dimension, entrepreneurial desire dimension and entrepreneurial feasibility dimension (Z. Liu, 2013). Based on the relevant studies of previous scholars, and in order to have a comprehensive understanding of the dimensions of entrepreneurial willingness, this study sorted out the different dimensions of entrepreneurial willingness of relevant scholars. Some sorting results are shown in Table 2.13.
Table 2.13 Entrepreneurial Willingness Dimension
Dimension The Author Year Dimension Names
Single dimension
Liñán 2007 Entrepreneurial willingness.
Minglei Ding 2009 Entrepreneurial willingness.
Two dimensions
Wei Fan Zhongming Wang
2005 Entrepreneurial desire, entrepreneurial feasibility.
Dan He 2006 entrepreneurship Possibility,
entrepreneurship preparation.
Yonghong Qian 2007 Individual trait level. Individual resource level (Qian, 2007).
Jianhong Wang 2019 Entrepreneurial idea.
Entrepreneurship preparation
Dimension The Author Year Dimension Names (Jianhong Wang, 2019).
Hailei Li 2011 Entrepreneurial goal willingness.
Entrepreneurial executive willingness (Hailei Li, 2011).
Yuna Liu Xiu-e Zhang
2018 Entrepreneurial aspiration.
Entrepreneurial feasibility Three
dimensions
Yongqiang Li 2008 Entrepreneurial attitude.
Subjective norm. Perceptual behavioral control (Y. Li, 2008).
Zhi Liu 2013 Entrepreneurial behavior
tendency. Entrepreneurial aspiration. Entrepreneurial feasibility
Five
dimensions
Y. Chen 1998 The level of consideration given to the establishment of a new enterprise.
The level of interest in starting a new business.
Readiness to start a new business.
The possibility of doing your best to start a new business.
How long it takes to start a new business
Six
dimensions
Hong Guo Yu Mao
2009 Past interests. Plan. Freelance.
Preferences. Occupational preference when restricted.
Behavior expectations (H. Guo
& Mao, 2009)
3) Entrepreneurial willingness influencing factors
Scholars have studied the influencing factors of entrepreneurial willingness and believe that college students’ professional background, educational level, age and other factors all have an impact on entrepreneurial willingness (Fan &
Wang, 2005). There is a negative correlation between educational background and entrepreneurial willingness (D. He, 2006). Entrepreneurship education (H. Xu & Hao, 2019; T. Yang, 2021), entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial environment (Yu & Kong, 2020) are significantly positively correlated with entrepreneurial willingness (Ling, 2020). On the contrary, the research results show that entrepreneurial willingness has a significant positive effect on entrepreneurial behavior (J. Xu & Tang, 2014) and entrepreneurial ability (Yuna Liu & Zhang, 2018).
4) Mediating role of entrepreneurial willingness
Bing Hao, Du Han, Luo Jing pointed out in Empirical Research on the Influencing Factors of Entrepreneurial Behavior and Entrepreneurial willingness that there was no significant difference between the influential factors of entrepreneurial behavior and entrepreneurial willingness. Because entrepreneurial willingness is a necessary condition for entrepreneurial behavior, influencing factors such as basic specific reference, educational background, social support and entrepreneurial ability can directly influence entrepreneurial behavior and indirectly influence entrepreneurial behavior through entrepreneurial willingness. Therefore, entrepreneurial willingness plays a partial mediating role (Bing, Du, & Luo, 2015).
Defeng Ling empirically studied the mediating effect of entrepreneurial willingness in the influence relationship of entrepreneurial education on entrepreneurial behavior.
Among them, entrepreneurial willingness has a mediating effect in the relationship of the influence of individual factors on entrepreneurial behavior and the relationship of the influence of school factors on entrepreneurial behavior (Ling, 2020).
By summarizing the results of literature review, it is not difficult to find that the connotation and scale of willingness used by previous scholars are not uniform. Linan adopted the scale of entrepreneurial willingness proposed by himself, in which entrepreneurial willingness only has the dimension of entrepreneurial willingness itself (Linan & Chen, 2009). Linan’s Entrepreneurial willingness scale was verified again in the paper Research on the relationship between Entrepreneurial
Self-efficacy and Entrepreneurial willingness, and the questionnaire had good reliability and validity results. Therefore, Linan’s entrepreneurial willingness scale was adopted in this study to measure and investigate entrepreneurial willingness.
2.2.4 Research on Entrepreneurial Competence