Entrepreneurial intention among undergraduate agricultural students in Ethiopia: The case of Jimma University

Abstract

The basic objective of this study was to find out the entrepreneurial intention of undergraduate agricultural students in Ethiopia taking Jimma University college of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine as a study area. Descriptive and inferential design was employed in the study. The stratified sampling techniques were applied to select respondents and in order to collect data, pretest self-administered questionnaires were distributed to 212 participants. Out of the total participants’ from ten (10) different departments all 88.2% (n=187) of the students’ returned the entrepreneurial intention questionnaire. Both qualitative and quantitative data analysis techniques mainly descriptive analysis using computed mean used while for inferential statistics Spearman correlation were employed. The study found that the entrepreneurial intention of under graduating agricultural students is high in the sense that they prefer to become self-employed and had strong desire and were certain to pursue entrepreneurial career. Related to the attitude to risk, majority of respondents were ready to assume risk while pursuing entrepreneurial career. However, the study result showed that availability of infrastructure, premises and utility was not satisfactorily available to be self-employed. In addition according to the finding, it was somewhat difficult to obtain startup capital. The major causes for the shortage of startup capital were requirement of collateral followed by high interest rate. Majority of respondents somewhat had positive attitudes on simplicity of the required legal procedure to obtain license and on availability of sufficient subsidies for establishing entrepreneurial venture. Students’ attitude towards the support of family and friend was positive, which is good opportunity for the students’ intention to become selfemployed. Undergraduate agricultural students living in rural areas have slightly greater intention to become an entrepreneur. Further, Spearman correlation analysis revealed that moderate positive relationship exists between independent variables of desire to start own business, certainty of startup own business, willingness to assume risk and over all entrepreneurial intention whereas the relationship between availability of infrastructure, utility as well as provision of premise and entrepreneurial intention was weakly correlated.