Understanding the Entrepreneurial Intention in the Light of Contextual Factors: Gender Analysis

Entrepreneurial intention is receiving immense recognition in entrepreneurship researches, as it motives an individual to become an entrepreneur. Still, the interplay between gender perspective and contextual factors (i.e., access to capital, business information, social network, educational support, structural support) are not fully investigated in understanding the entrepreneurial intention in developing countries like Bangladesh. Therefore, the paper aims to examine the gender difference and educational discipline difference in the university's students' entrepreneurial intention in relation to contextual factors in Bangladesh. In this study, sample has been particularly taken from the different disciplinary students of private universities. Five-point Likert scale-based survey questionnaire was developed based on past researches. 280 online survey forms were distributed among the university students and finally 225 students' response were found correct as the study sample size (final survey response rate = 80%), after eliminating the incorrect survey responses. For statistical analysis SPSS 23.0 version is used. One-way ANOVA is used to measure the gender and discipline difference on entrepreneurial intention among male and female students. The results show that business information and social network will have more influence on male students' entrepreneurial intention, and comparatively, business students have more willingness to become entrepreneurs than other departmental students.