Entrepreneurial Intentions and Cultural Orientations. An Exploratory Analysis in Italian and Turkish Universities

The entrepreneurial intention (EI) framework is nowadays considered as a consolidated area of inquiry where different models can be used to understand what is behind an individual willingness to start a new venture in the future. Exploring entrepreneurial intentions of individuals represents a challenge not only for scholars but also for university education and policy-making aiming to monitor, contribute, and support entrepreneurial behaviours. We decided to join the EI scientific conversation through a two-country analysis. Our theoretical choices draw upon the Theory of Planned Behaviour applied to entrepreneurship emergence, which assumes that personal attitude, perceived behavioural control, and social norm influence the way an entrepreneurial career is perceived to be a possible choice. In our model, we originally decided to test for the effects of scenario-based cultural orientations. We administrate a cross-national questionnaire to two samples of students of belonging respectively to an Italian and a Turkish university. Data are finally analysed through PLS-SEM techniques. Our results suggest that variations in EI may be attributed to uncertainty avoidance and power distance. As well, an important role is played by entrepreneurship education.