The Effect of Personal and Environmental Characteristics on Perceived Feasibility and Entrepreneurial Intention

Entrepreneurship education has been considered one of the key solutions to strengthen the entrepreneurial attitudes. However, the elements that influence the individual’s determination to make a start-up are not well-defined. This study attempts to empirically examine the influence of both personal characteristic factors and environmental characteristic factors on perceived feasibility and entrepreneurial intention of college students as potential entrepreneurs. The theoretical framework of this study indicates the personal factors (need for autonomy, creativity, innovativeness) and environmental factors (financing concern, perceived barriers, perceived opportunity cost) which give influence to perceived feasibility, and the mediating variable gives influence to entrepreneurial intention finally. This study also suggests entrepreneurial education as a control variable in the relationship. To test the research hypotheses, quantitative survey data were collected from Korean college students. A survey of the entire population of 396 respondents was taken via the online survey site and only 391 samples with entrepreneurial education experience were used to prove the research model. The outcomes indicate that the students’ perceived feasibility is significantly linked to financing concern, perceived barriers, the need for autonomy, and innovativeness. And the relationship between perceived feasibility and entrepreneurial intention is also held.