Abstract:
Understanding the levels of entrepreneurial intention among university students is
particularly critical in Africa where the scourge of unemployment is profound. Alive to this,
governments and well-meaning institutions are investing in entrepreneurship development, the gains
of which remain to be seen leading to an ebbing of hope in the youth population. To this end the study
investigates the entrepreneurial intention of university students in South Africa with an aim to reveal
differences arising from study streams. The study consequently extends knowledge by examining
entrepreneurial intention within the context of an unemployment-ridden society while leveraging on
the theories of planned behaviour. The study executed from a positivist standpoint surveyed 238
students and quantitatively analysed the data principally to test deductively derived hypothesised
relationships. The empirical study concludes that there is indeed a difference in entrepreneurial
intention levels between the two groups. Empirical in nature, this quantitative study and concludes
that there is indeed a difference in entrepreneurial intention levels between the two groups.
Interventions aimed at enhancing entrepreneurship can only generate desirable results if the
entrepreneurial intentions of the target population are known. This would ensure that the right type of
interventions are created and delivered to specific groups as the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach continues
to fail. Serving a clearly heterogeneous population with seemingly homogenous interventions appears
faulty and this reality needs to inform pro-entrepreneurship initiatives in future.
