ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTIONS OF STUDENTS AT PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES IN TRANSITION ECONOMIES

This paper investigates the entrepreneurial potential among students at private universities in two transition countries through the analysis of students’ entrepreneurial intentions (EI). Empirical analysis is based on survey data we collected in 2017 and 2018 from over 400 students of economics and business at private universities in North Macedonia and Croatia. The theory of planned behaviour and a set of other antecedents are employed in order to examine the effect of both personal-level and contextual variables on entrepreneurial intentions. Assessing the students’ image of an entrepreneur and how they evaluate the entrepreneurs’ social and economic roles in society, as well as the prestige of an entrepreneur when compared to other professions, offer valuable inputs for policy makers aiming to improve the entrepreneurial potential and business climate in developing economies. This study provides empirical evidence of the positive effect of two variables from the theory of planned behaviour (personal attitude towards entrepreneurship and subjective norm) on entrepreneurial intent of business students at private universities in transition countries. The most striking result of the study is the positive effect of perceived barriers (as a contextual variable) on entrepreneurial intent, a finding that is contrary to past research and literature review.