Exploring entrepreneurial intentions, motivations and obstacles among final year students of UiTM Pahang / Musramaini Mustapha, Siti Aishah Mohamad and Ilyani Azer

Nowadays, cultivating entrepreneurship has become a vital agenda in most countries. Entrepreneurship improves the standard of living in the society by creating job opportunities and contributing to the development of the country. The Ministry of Education (MOE) in collaboration with the Higher Learning Institutions has undertaken various efforts to shape the minds and intentions of students to become entrepreneurs. Therefore, it is crucial to investigate the level of intentions and motivations to be an entrepreneur among final year students. The sample of this study consists of 34 selected final year students from different courses of study who have attended Kursus Asas Keusahawanan (KAKS) organised by the Malaysian Academy of SME & Entrepreneurship Development (MASMED) of UiTM Pahang. The main objective of this paper is to explore a better understanding of the intentional and motivational factors that could inspire students toward entrepreneurship. In order to capture the true scenario toward entrepreneurship among them, the barriers to entrepreneurship are also considered. Therefore, this study also investigates the major obstacles to the development of future entrepreneurs among final year students. The results show that UiTM Pahang students have high intentions and motivations to be an entrepreneur, but the financial factor becomes the obstacle for them

Intention And Motivation Toward Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship has become an important agenda in the Malaysian Education System. The Malaysian government has started to embark on entrepreneurship development among students. It is proven with huge budget allocated by the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) in order to drive entrepreneurship activities among the students in the universities. All activities conducted are to increase students’ intentions and motivation to be entrepreneurs. It is very important to the university to know about the final year students’ intentions to choose entrepreneurship as their profession in the future. MOHE targets about 6,000 graduates to become entrepreneurs in 2013-2015 from the implementation of Entrepreneurial Strategic Plans 2013-2015. Due to that, this study was conducted to identify the intentions and motivations toward entrepreneurship among the final year students from two UiTM campuses (UiTM Pahang and UiTM Melaka). The overall results showed the intentions to be entrepreneurs among the students from two campuses were positive. UiTM Pahang final year students were motivated to be entrepreneurs because they wanted to be their own boss, and the UiTM Melaka final year students wanted to realize their own dreams to become entrepreneurs. The students’ intentions and motivations towards entrepreneurship are very important not only to the universities, but also for the nation and the country as a whole. These findings may assist UiTM Pahang and UiTM Melaka to create more opportunities for their students to get involved in businesses by continually supporting entrepreneurship development. Besides, the aim of MOHE to produce 6,000 entrepreneurs within 2013-2015 can be achieved

Agro-preneurial obstacles among students in the Faculty of Plantation and Agrotechnology, UiTM Pahang / Ilyani Azer ... [et al.]

Most tertiary institutions offer entrepreneurial programmes and courses to the students. However, there appears to be a lot of challenges in maintaining the elements of business in the real world. This study highlights the obstacles in entrepreneurship among students from the Faculty of Plantation and Agrotechnology, Univeristi Teknologu MARA (UiTM) Pahang. The main objective is to explore the perceptions toward the obstacles in agro-preneurship among the respondents. The results pointed out that the students’ perceptions of lack of experience, finding the right partner, and lack of information are the main three obstacles in agro-preneurship. In addition, specific obstacles in agro-preneurship exist based on the student’s gender which is caused by different obstacles