Entrepreneurial Intentions, Risk-taking Propensity and Environmental Support: The Italian Experience

Entrepreneurship is recognised as a powerful engine for employment and wealth for nations, to the point that, at the European level, institutions are, to date, particularly active in finding ways to stimulate young people’s entrepreneurial skills. In line with this, this chapter aims at analysing the entrepreneurial intention (EI) of students, testing the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) introduced by Ajzen in 1988 and expanding it by adding two ‘new’ variables, i.e. risk-taking propensity and perceived environmental support. In doing so, a questionnaire has been developed and the answers from a final sample of 383 Italian undergraduate students have been analysed. Results support the entrepreneurial intention model: most hypotheses have been supported, and the explained variance is notably high. These results are interesting both for academics and policy-makers, pointing out the pivotal role of the environment to develop and foster the attitude towards entrepreneurship among students.