PERCEIVED BARRIERS TO ENTREPRENEURIAL

INTENTIONS BY GRADUATES IN INTERIOR

SINDH

Submitted By:
Muhammad Hashim Kurio
MS Scholar
Email:hashimkurio@gmail.com

Supervisor:
Dr.Riaz Ahmed Mangi
Assistant Professor
Email:ramangi30@gmail.com

Department of Business Administration

Shah Abdul Latif University Khairpur Mir’s
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TABLE OF CONTENT:
Table of contents…………………………………………………….………………………..1
Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………….2
Introduction:…………………………………………………………………………………..2
Independent Variable……………………………….……………………………………….3
Dependent Variable…………………………………………………………………………4
Literature Review:…………………………………………………………………………….5
Methodology:…………………………………………………………………………………8
Type of Research (Quantitative):………….………………………………………………9
Sampling method………………………………………………….………………………9
Data Analysis:………………………………………………………………………………10
Research Findings……………………………………………………………………….10
Results…………………………………………………………………………………...11
Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………..18
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PERCEIVED BARRIERS TO ENTREPRENEURIAL

INTENTIONSBY GRADUATES IN INTERIOR
SINDH

Abstract
Unemployment has remained a key issue in modern world individual’s institutions and nations have
strived hard to control unemployment. One of the best possible solution world has witnessed is the self-
employment or in other words being entrepreneur. Research has established that developed nations have
more entrepreneurs than developing nations. So for developing nations it is a matter that requires
attention the most so this research attempted to study the perceived barriers to entrepreneurial intentions
for the students of interior Sindh. This research will identify the barriers and would enable the
understanding why Sindh province especially interior is not producing the number of entrepreneurs it
should, so as to make policy makers able to work in this direction. Data was collected from 60 University
students. Results showed that Experience, customer preference, availability of team, and availability of
resources has no influence on the entrepreneurial intentions.But lack of support does have a significant
negative relationship with the entrepreneurial intentions.

INTRODUCTION:
Entrepreneurs who always think out of the box and modify the existing features of products in a creative
and unique way. They start businesses which everyone cannot activate,and it is very problematic to
replicate their idea. As they commence their business, it creates employment for others also. As there will
be less number of entrepreneurs so will be the employment rate. Unemployment has remained a critical
issue for every country and governments haven’t been able to control it. We live in developing country
(Pakistan) where unemployment rate was around 4.9 and expected unemployment rate is 6.1 according to
the TradingEconomic.com. As employment is expected to decrease in coming future so it requires the
best possible ways to increase this rate. And the best practice which a country can adopt to reduce
unemployment is that there should be self-employed persons (entrepreneurs) who can provide
opportunities to others and create employment for them. So this seems that entrepreneurship is something
good for every country. But then the problem is that why graduates are not preferring to be the
entrepreneurs and every graduate seeks the job after completion of their degrees. The education rate is
increasing in the Pakistan than before so as the unemployment rate is. Because many students are
graduating every year and look for jobs. But companies cannot hire that much employees every year. So
this is the reason of unemployment. As the new businesses and companies will emerge in the country so it
can create employment and the economy will also grow.
There are very feweramount of entrepreneurs in Pakistan and smaller in especially Interior Sindh. But if
we realize the education rate in interior Sindh that is growing from past few years. So what those students
are doing who are graduating fromdifferent universities with this optimistic thought in their lives that they
will get attainmentof the goals in their lives. Toattain their goalsthey just exploit jobs and visualize the
promotions in the organizations where they work. But only undertaking jobs and expecting the
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promotions cannot contribute much to their success and everyone knows it. So why they are moving for
jobs and not to the entrepreneurship. Many studies are done to come up for some reasons behind this. And
they came up with many different reasons. And we extend our study by choosing some variables other
than those which were previously studied by other researchers.

The scope of our study is neither too broad nor too narrow. Our research will be helpful for the
students as well as the businesses. This study will help the students/graduates by providing them
idea that they can be entrepreneurs after overcoming the some issues. And it will be beneficial
for businesses to expand.
Our research will provide empirical evidences for why graduates are not moving towards the
entrepreneurship. Our study will provide you deep understanding of all the reasons behind it.

OBJECTIVE OF RESEARCH:
The objective of this research is to gain some knowledge about the graduate’s perception for
entrepreneurship. This paper is aimed to study the impact of some resources on starting up the
business.
VARIABLES OF STUDY:

1. Independent Variable:
Lack of experience:
Fresh graduates have less practical exposure and experience. And for running their own business they
need some experiences which they can get from doing jobs. And they need to develop managerial and
leadership qualities in them with the guidance of senior workers. Which they cannot develop in their own
business right after graduating. So they are lacking in some important skills, practical exposure and some
guidance that’s why they are not moving towards the entrepreneurship.

Customer preferences:
Another reason is that they do not know much about the customer preferences and market competitors. So
they cannot compete very well in the market and they cannot add value for customers to be preferred by
them in this highly competitive market. Because it is very much difficult for the new entrant to gain the
customers insights that what they want. It is even difficult for the experienced one so newly graduates
cannot do this.

Team:
Students who are graduating have less social contacts then businessmen and they cannot build effective
team. This is also an issue for new graduates. As they do not have experience of knowing people so
maybe they will hire the team which cannot work efficiently and effectively. And if team will not work
properly so business cannot run and they will not earn profits.
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Government:
We have many legal requirements to fulfil as we think about starting the business. And fulfilling those
requirements for commencing the business is not an easy task. Legal procedures take much more time to
fulfil because all our Govt. proceedings are very slow until and unless it is not the high time our Govt. Do
not come up with any decision. So it is difficult for new graduate to fulfil those legal requirements who
do not know much about all the procedures.

Resources:
The main issue highlighted was that they do not have sufficient resources to start the new venture.
Starting up the new venture needs a huge investment. And every graduate cannot afford it. They will be
needing the financial resources as well as capital for their outlet. And financing for compensation of
employees. So no any investor can be convinced by new graduates that they will give profits to the
investors. So this important to have, if we are starting a new venture.

2. Dependent Variable:
Entrepreneurial Intentions:
An individual's intent to pursue an entrepreneurial career.
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LITERATURE REVIEW
Entrepreneurship is a set of various factors e.g. personality traits, education, customer
preferences experience, social and economic conditions, team work, law and order etc. Various
researchers have given various findings for the said factors. This paper attempts to study the
impact of lack of experience, team, customer preferences, government support and availability of
resources on entrepreneurial intentions of the students.
In article Determinants of Students’ Entrepreneurial Career Intentions: Evidence from Business
Graduates many researchers have worked on different variables which are like those variables on
which we are conducting our research given is information regarding variable “Entrepreneurial
intentions” which is a bit similar for our research purpose.

Entrepreneurship Education and Entrepreneurial Intentions:

Base and Virick (n.d.) found that education can affect students’ attitudes toward entrepreneurship
and their entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Lack of entrepreneurial education leads to low level of
entrepreneurial intentions of students (Franke & Luthje, 2004). Entrepreneur with entrepreneurial
education and experience can create higher profits from entrepreneurial businesses (Jo & Lee,
1996).
Recent research proves relationship between entrepreneurial knowledge and identification of
entrepreneurial opportunities. (Shepherd & DeTienne, 2005). Some of the earlier studies refer to
an individual's distinct information regarding a particular area of study (Venkataraman, 1997) or
it may be the result of work experience as well (Gimeno et al. 1997). Entrepreneurial education
program are source of entrepreneurial attitude and overall intentions to become future
entrepreneur (Souitaris et al.2007).

Family Background and Entrepreneurial Intentions:

Carr & Sequeira (2007) found that exposure to family business serves as an important
intergenerational influence on intentions to become entrepreneur. Family characteristics have
implication on emergence of new business, recognition of opportunity, startup decisions and
resource mobilizations (Aldrich & Cliff, 2003). Similarly, prior exposure to entrepreneurship
both from the family side and personal have an impact on entrepreneurial intentions, those
having their self-employed father are more inclined towards entrepreneurship (Basu & Virick,
n.d., & Krueger, 1993). Exogenous influences (like demographics, skills and society, traits,
financial support, and culture) affect the attitudes and the intentions indirectly and behaviors to
become entrepreneurs (Shapero and Sokol, 1982).
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Gender Differences and Entrepreneurial Intentions:

Brush (1992) found that men are more inclined towards entrepreneurial business than women
with similar background. A large quantity of researches proved that women face more
difficulties in venturing process as compared to their male counterparts. Particularly, women
entrepreneurs face more difficulty in arranging a capital to start or to support their business
(Fay& Williams, 1993) or to have angel financing (Becker-Blease & Sohl, 2007). So above
literature suggests that man are more inclined towards starting a new venture and they find more
supportive environment as compared to the women.

Impact of lack of experience on entrepreneurial intentions:

Students who are graduating have less social contacts then businessmen and they cannot build
effective team. This is also an issue for new graduates. The purpose of having a best teamwork is
to help productivity, quality and provide a support system for each member of team to achieve
the goal of business which on individual basis seems impossible. If an entrepreneur fails to hire
the best employees in his firm, then wok cannot be done efficiently and effectively and if team
will not work properly so business cannot run and they will not earn profits. So the hypothesis
will be:
H1: Lack of experience influences the entrepreneurial intentions

Customer preferences’ impact on entrepreneurial intentions:

We have list of legal requirements to fulfil before starting our own business. And fulfilling those
requirements for commencing the business is not an easy task. Legal procedures take much more
time to fulfil because all our Government proceedings are very slow until and unless its not the
high time our Gont. Do not come up with any decision. So it’s difficult for new graduate to fulfil
those legal requirements who do not know much about all the procedures. To test this variable
following hypothesis will be tested.
H2: Customer preference may influence entrepreneurial intentions.

Availability of a good team and entrepreneurial intentions:

Students who are graduating have less social contacts then businessmen and they cannot build
effective team. This is also an issue for new graduates. As they do not have experience of
knowing people so maybe they will hire the team which cannot work efficiently and effectively.
And if team will not work properly so business cannot run and they will not earn profits. So the
hypothesis will be;
H3: Individuals with good team available have more entrepreneurial intentions
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Government support stimulating entrepreneurial intentions:
We have many legal requirements to fulfil as we think about starting the business. And fulfilling
those requirements for commencing the business is not an easy task. Legal procedures take much
more time to fulfil because all our Govt. proceedings are very slow until and unless it is not the
high time our Govt. Do not come up with any decision. So it is difficult for new graduate to fulfil
those legal requirements who do not know much about all the procedures. So the hypothesis will
be;
H4: government Support influences entrepreneurial intentions.

Availability of Resources and entrepreneurial intentions:

The main issue highlighted was that they do not have sufficient resources to start the new
venture. Starting up the new venture needs a huge investment. And every graduate cannot afford
it. They will be needing the financial resources as well as capital for their outlet. And financing
for compensation of employees. So no any investor can be convinced by new graduates that they
7

will give profits to the investors. So this important to have, if we are starting a new venture. This
variable will be tested by following hypothesis.
H5: Availability of Resources influence entrepreneurial intentions.

Resources
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METHODOLOGY
This research will employ qualitative approach to analyze the effects of factors like Lack of
experience, Customer preferences, Team, Government and Resources to young fresh graduates
of Sukkur district to become an entrepreneur or in having entrepreneurial intentions. To examine
the research model empirically a questionnaire will be developed.

 Sampling and Data Collection Approach

The population of this study will be the graduates and graduating students of Sukkur
district including universities like Shah Abdul latif university Khairpur Mirs, Sukkur
Institute of Business Administration and Dadabhoy Institute of Higher Education Sukkur
campus. Total of 60 questionnaires will filled which means from each university 20
students will fill the form and the systematic random sampling technique will be used
which means every 3rd and 7th student will be requested for the responses to the
questionnaire.
 Research instrument
The instrument of this research will be questionnaire that will reflect the perceived
barriers to entrepreneurship by the graduates of Sukkur district like Lack of experience,
customer preferences, Team, Government and Resources on entrepreneurial intentions.
The questionnaire will be designed in such a way that it would contain at least 20
questions, 4 for each variable to be asked by the respondent.so that the motive of research
is achieved in best way.
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DATA ANALYSIS
Descriptive statistics, Pearson Correlation, Regression and Multicollinearity were used to
analyze the data and for the purpose we used software SPSS 18.

RESEARCH FINDINGS

Frequency Table
This table shows the descriptive statistics of the variables

Gender
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent

Vmale 40 66.7 66.7 66.7

a
female 20 33.3 33.3 100.0
l
i Total 60 100.0 100.0
d

Degree Program
Cumulative
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Percent

Valid BBA 21 35.0 35.0 35.0

MBA 14 23.3 23.3 58.3

BE 12 20.0 20.0 78.3

Other 13 21.7 21.7 100.0

Total 60 100.0 100.0

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Results
Relationship between entrepreneurial intentions and experience:
Results from the collected data suggest that there is a negative relationship between the entrepreneurial
intentions and experience, Pearson correlation value for this relation is -0.154 whereas the significance
level is 0.240 so we can conclude that there is a very weakbut negative relationship between the two
variables.
Relationship between entrepreneurial intentions and customer preference:
There is weak statistically significant relationship between entrepreneurial intentions and customer
preferences. Pearson correlation value for this is 0.076 whereas the significance level is 0.561 we can
conclude a weak positive relationship exists between two variables.

Relationship between Entrepreneurial intentions and availability of team:

Pearson correlation between the two variables is 0.135 with the significance level of 0.303 which is not
statistically significant which is greater than 0.05 for this we conclude that there is very weak or
insignificant relationship between both variables..
Relationship between government support and entrepreneurial intentions:
We found no statistical relationship between two variables. Person correlation value equals -.251and
significance level value is 0.053 which is very near to the significant value of 0.05 which shows there is
negative relationship between both variables. That means more the lack of support from government less
will be the entrepreneurial intentions. This is very important finding in the research.
Relationship between entrepreneurial intentions and resources:
We found no significant relationship between the two variables Pearson correlation value of the two
variables is -0.93 and significance level is 0.481 which is more than 0.05 that means there is no
significant statistical relationship between the two variables.
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CORELATIONS
Table 01 shows descriptive statistics by using correlation analysis which provides mean and
standard deviation of all variables by using the sample size.

Descriptive Statistics

Mean Std. Deviation N

Mean_EA 1.6333 .50868 60

Mean_EX 5.4417 3.86405 60

Mean_CP 3.8917 .88582 60

Mean_TM 3.1889 .88802 60

Mean_GT 3.7389 1.07197 60

Mean_RE 1.5667 .25155 60

Correlations
Mean_EA Mean_EX Mean_CP Mean_TM Mean_GT
Mean_RE
Pearson Correlation
Mean_EA 1 -.154 .076 .135 -.251 -.093
Sig. (2-tailed)
.240 .561 .303 .053 .481
N
60 60 60 60 60 60

Mean_EX Pearson Correlation -.154 1 .061 .194 .039 -.048

Sig. (2-tailed) .240 .642 .137 .770 .714

N 60 60 60 60 60 60

Mean_CP Pearson Correlation .076 .061 1 -.011 .044 .014

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Sig. (2-tailed) .561 .642 .932 .738 .916

N 60 60 60 60 60 60

Mean_TM Pearson Correlation .135 .194 -.011 1 .096 .056

Sig. (2-tailed) .303 .137 .932 .465 .668

N 60 60 60 60 60 60

Mean_GT Pearson Correlation -.251 .039 .044 .096 1 .003

Sig. (2-tailed) .053 .770 .738 .465 .983

N 60 60 60 60 60 60

Mean_RE Pearson Correlation -.093 -.048 .014 .056 .003 1

Sig. (2-tailed) .481 .714 .916 .668 .983

N 60 60 60 60 60 60

REGRESSION
CORELATIONS
Mean_EA Mean_EX Mean_CP Mean_TM

Spearman's rho Mean_EA Correlation Coefficient 1.000 -.006 .098 .055

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Sig. (2-tailed) . .964 .455 .677

N 60 60 60 60

Mean_EX Correlation Coefficient -.006 1.000 -.076 .092

Sig. (2-tailed) .964 . .565 .487

N 60 60 60 60

Mean_CP Correlation Coefficient .098 -.076 1.000 .035

Sig. (2-tailed) .455 .565 . .788

N 60 60 60 60

Mean_TM Correlation Coefficient .055 .092 .035 1.000

Sig. (2-tailed) .677 .487 .788 .

N 60 60 60 60

Mean_GT Correlation Coefficient -.240 .237 .091 .179

Sig. (2-tailed) .065 .068 .491 .172

N 60 60 60 60

Mean_RE Correlation Coefficient -.058 -.150 .135 .126

Sig. (2-tailed) .660 .254 .304 .337

N 60 60 60 60

Correlations

Mean_GT Mean_RE

Spearman's rho Mean_EA Correlation Coefficient -.240 -.058

Sig. (2-tailed) .065 .660

N 60 60

Mean_EX Correlation Coefficient .237 -.150

Sig. (2-tailed) .068 .254

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N 60 60

Mean_CP Correlation Coefficient .091 .135

Sig. (2-tailed) .491 .304

N 60 60

Mean_TM Correlation Coefficient .179 .126

Sig. (2-tailed) .172 .337

N 60 60

Mean_GT Correlation Coefficient 1.000 .065

Sig. (2-tailed) . .623

N 60 60

Mean_RE Correlation Coefficient .065 1.000

Sig. (2-tailed) .623 .

N 60 60
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COEFFICIENTS
Model Standardized
Unstandardized Coefficients Coefficients

B Std. Error Beta t Sig.

1 (Constant) 2.001 .568 3.524 .001

Mean_EX -.026 .017 -.196 -1.519 .135

Mean_CP .060 .073 .104 .825 .413

Mean_TM .118 .074 .207 1.598 .116

Mean_GT -.127 .060 -.268 -2.113 .039

Mean_RE -.232 .256 -.115 -.906 .369

a. Dependent Variable: Mean_EA

Coefficients

Model 95.0% Confidence Interval for B Collinearity Statistics

Lower Bound Upper Bound Tolerance VIF

1 (Constant) .863 3.140

Mean_EX -.060 .008 .954 1.048

Mean_CP -.086 .205 .993 1.007

Mean_TM -.030 .267 .949 1.053

Mean_GT -.248 -.007 .988 1.012

Mean_RE -.744 .281 .993 1.007

a. Dependent Variable: Mean_EA

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COLLINEARITY
Model Dimension Variance Proportions

Eigenvalue Condition Index (Constant) Mean_EX Mean_CP Mean_TM

1 1 5.546 1.000 .00 .01 .00 .00

2 .285 4.413 .00 .95 .00 .00

dime
3 .065 9.225 .00 .02 .00 .37
nsio dimension1

4 .061 9.566 .00 .01 .33 .42

n0

5 .034 12.695 .02 .01 .49 .15

6 .009 24.522 .97 .00 .17 .06

a. Dependent Variable: Mean_EA

Collinearity Diagnostics

Model Dimension Variance Proportions

Mean_GT Mean_RE

1 1 .00 .00

2 .01 .00

dime
3 .70 .01
nsion dimension1

4 .19 .01
0

5 .03 .36

6 .07 .62

a. Dependent Variable: Mean_EA

RELIABILITY
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Reliability Statistics

Cronbach's Alpha N of Items

.545 27

CONCLUSION
We reached a very surprising but important conclusion through this research that, experience,
availability of resources,availability of knowledge about customer preferences does not have a
significant relationship with the entrepreneurial intentions whereas lack of government support
has negative statistically significant relationship with the entrepreneurial relationships.