THE EFFECTS OF CREATIVITY SUPPORTED AT THE UNIVERSITY ON ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHAVIOR

Abstract

Purpose: This paper examines direct and serial indirect effects of creativity supported at the university on male and female entrepreneurial behavior through entrepreneurial self-efficacy and individual entrepreneurial intent.

Methodology: The hypothesized model (which we tested) was a serial mediation model with two mediators. To examine the question of whether the relationship between variables varies by gender, model 6 in PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2018) was utilized separately for male (n = 218) and female (n = 385) students from nine different universities in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Results: Serial mediation of entrepreneurial self-efficacy and individual entrepreneurial intent in the relationship between creativity supported at the university and student entrepreneurial behavior were supported in both male and female samples.

Conclusion: Serial mediation analyses indicated that a higher level of creativity supported at the university will improve student entrepreneurial self-efficacy, which may increase their entrepreneurial intent, and consequently, their entrepreneurial behavior. When the university encourages students to produce new ideas and examine old problems in new ways, it improves student confidence in their ability to mobilize cognitive, motivational, and behavioral facilities to perform entrepreneurial tasks successfully, and, in response, students demonstrate a higher level of individual entrepreneurial intent and a greater propensity for entrepreneurial behavior. However, it should be noted that an indirect effect of UC on EB only through EI was not significant in the female sample, which highlights the importance of ESE in the relationship between UC, female EI, and female EB. The results opened up a new field of research on how other types of creativity and other types of university support may affect students’ entrepreneurial behavior.