Abstract
This paper examines the influence of perceived university and institutional support on business start-up intentions using empirical data collected from 391 technical graduates in Tanzania. Specifically, the paper examines the influence of perceived educational, concept, and business development support on business start-up intentions and the mediating effect of institutional support on the hypothesized relationships. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed to examine the influence of perceived university support on business start-up intentions and the mediating effect of institutional support on the hypothesized relationships. The findings indicate that concept development and institutional support significantly influenced business start-up intentions. However, institutional support partially mediated the influence of perceived university support on business start-up intentions through concept development support but fully mediated through educational and business development support. Conclusively, institutional support matters a lot if colleges and universities are to properly groom and orient graduates towards business start-ups. Technical colleges and universities should employ experiential pedagogical methods while designing tailor-made business development services to equip graduates with know-how and hands-on skills to enhance their potential to venture into business start-ups.
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Data availability
The dataset can be accessed upon special request from the authors.
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Acknowledgements
The corresponding author acknowledges the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH) for organizing a scientific paper writing workshop that speeded up the completion of this manuscript.
Funding
The corresponding author received financial support from the Federal Government of Germany through Deutscher Academischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) for the In-country Scholarship Programme (No. 91602573).
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KLN contributed to the conception, design, data collection, analysis, discussion of the findings, and the write-up of the entire paper. HPT and DWN jointly supervised KLN. As supervisors, they provided professional guidance during the revision of the manuscript to ensure intellectual content for publication. All authors read and approved the manuscript for publication.
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Nzilano, K.L., Tundui, H.P. & Ndyetabula, D.W. Perceived university support and technical graduates’ intentions to venture into business start-ups in Tanzania: does institutional support matter?. J Glob Entrepr Res 12, 465–477 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40497-022-00334-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40497-022-00334-0
Keywords
- Perceived university support
- Business start-ups
- Institutional support
- Intentions