The paper sought to make contribution to youth entrepreneurship research field. This is because whilst youth entrepreneurship presents enormous socio-economic benefits, including economic growth, diversification, innovation and poverty elimination earlier research have paid more attention to adults' entrepreneurship with less attention been paid to youth entrepreneurship resulting in a compelling research gap following the present huge youth unemployment across the world. Consequently, the motivation of the paper is to guide public policy and practice on the promotion of youth entrepreneurship, especially in developing countries.,The study employs the survey research design based on logistic regression analysis as the key analytical technique to examine data. The choice of the logistic regression model is due to the fact that the main research question that informs the study is a dichotomous one. Hence it was found appropriate to select the logit regression model based on similar works in the field.,Over all, the results show that lack of financial support from one's family background, early entry into formal employment, as well as being born into entrepreneurial dominated families significantly predict the probability of a youth considering entrepreneurship as an attractive life venture.,The study is based on non-probability sampling method and so readers must bear that in mind when they are interpreting the results.,Following from the findings, one of the practical implications is that youth entrepreneurs must align the external influences to the internal capacity of the businesses to initiate and/or start sustainable entrepreneurial ventures.,The study sheds light from an under-explored and new geographical context to advance existing knowledge in the field.

Strategic factors predicting the likelihood of youth entrepreneurship in Ghana: a logistic regression analysis


Purpose
The research effort on entrepreneurship education has been mainly for the higher education settings and on the individual level of analysis. On the contrary, this research urges scholars to expedite attention to the secondary education settings, especially in the emerging economies in Asia and Africa. This paper aims to reveal the existing landscape of literature development on the topic and promote ecological approaches of constructing entrepreneurship education programs in schools. It advocates the “incubator” role of schools for students and the necessity of establishing socially embedded entrepreneurship education as the playground for future entrepreneurs.


Design/methodology/approach
This study followed the systematic literature review as its research design. It obtained 1,555 publications from six academic databases and 60 more publications from expert consulting and backward snowballing technique. Data screening resulted in a total of 101 relevant publications with the upper secondary education as their research context. The qualitative integrative synthesis method was then applied to integrate research evidence to the five circles of systems according to Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory.


Findings
This study contributes to the entrepreneurship education and youth career development literature, especially in the developing countries. Results discovered that entrepreneurship education programs, when interacting with ecological systems, resulted in training success. The most frequently studied systems were microsystems; here, there was a dominant focus on program-level reporting and analyzing. There was less focus on other systems such as mesosystems, exosystems or macrosystems. Moreover, only one study was associated with chronosystems, suggesting a significant research gap regarding the longitudinal studies. However, this review validated the different approaches to delivering entrepreneurship education in emerging and developed economies.


Research limitations/implications
One limitation of this research lies in the methodology. The inclusion criteria limited the studies to the context of upper secondary education and excluded those of secondary education in general. The sampling method limited the power of this research to analyze and discuss policy-level studies because policies most likely embrace the whole secondary education level as its target. Another limitation is associated with the lack of experimental studies in assessing the comparative advantages of following the ecological approach when constructing entrepreneurship education. It, therefore, remains an undiscussed matter within this study regarding whether following the ecological approach means empirically a better educational choice or not.


Practical implications
This study discusses the implications for policymakers, especially in emerging economies, and suggests that awareness, attention and funding are needed to empower youth entrepreneurship education from an ecological systems view.


Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is one of few studies that use the ecological systems theory in the context of entrepreneurship education with the purpose of focusing on environment-level analysis instead of individual-level analysis. Through the systematic literature review, this study proposes an ecological approach to comprehend, guide, evaluate and improve the design and implementation of entrepreneurship education programs in schools based on well-articulated research evidence. The research can inform both researchers and educators by offering a holistic perspective to observe and evaluate entrepreneurship education programs and their levels of social connectedness.


The ecological approach to construct entrepreneurship education: a systematic literature review

Abstract Although entrepreneurial intention has been regarded as one of the most important drivers of creativity, innovation, and performance in firms, a comprehensive framework that integrates the relevant influential factors has yet to be developed. Drawing on the theory of planned behavior and the social cognitive career theory, this study investigates the critical antecedents, mediators, and moderators of entrepreneurial intention. A meta-analytic approach is employed to validate the proposed hypotheses, and 89 primary studies with a total sample size of 51,919 are analyzed. The results indicate the existence of differences in the manner in which entrepreneurial knowledge influences cognitive antecedents in the individuals who participate in new ventures. Furthermore, personal attitude and self-efficacy play a vital role in predicting entrepreneurial intention. Demographic characteristics (such as age, gender, and education background) significantly moderate the relationship between cognitive antecedents and entrepreneurial intention, indicating that men tend to adopt more entrepreneurial behaviors than women, that older individuals with more positive attitudes have a higher propensity to start ventures than younger ones, and that those with higher education attainment tend to have lower self-employment. These findings offer several recommendations. They could provide valuable references for further academic work, which should aim to extend and validate them. The findings are also very beneficial for professional experts tasked with the design of effective programs for enhancing entrepreneurial behavior. 

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Unveiling the role of entrepreneurial knowledge and cognition as antecedents of entrepreneurial intention: a meta-analytic study

Entrepreneurship has been globally adopted as a strategic approach in facilitating economic participation among youth. On an individual level, entrepreneurship affords young people their independence and autonomy to pursue their dreams. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the factors that motivate youth entrepreneurial intention amongst students in a South African university. Using a cross-sectional design with a quantitative structured questionnaire, a sample of 247 students was interviewed and the collected data was analysed with Principal component analysis. The results showed four major factors that influence students’ entrepreneurial intentions. These factors include the quest to create sustainable employment, the need for independence and self-development, the quest to use one’s knowledge and search for financial security and finally to take risks and challenge oneself.

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Factors Influencing Entrepreneurial Intention: A Case of Students in a South African University

Based on a sample of 301 first, second and third-year undergrad entrepreneurship students from a university of technology in South Africa, the purpose of this research paper was to investigate the effects of gender on students’ entrepreneurial intentions (EI), as well as the determinants of EI. The theory of planned behaviour (TPB) underpins this research. The study’s ob-jectives were to establish whether the TPB might assist in explaining the effects of gender on students’ EI, as well as the factors that influence EI. The data was analysed using partial least square (PLS) structural equation modeling (SEM) algorithm in SmartPLS 3.3.3. The findings of this study revealed that gender has no significant relationship with students’ EI, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and attitude towards behaviour. In terms of the TPB, the findings revealed that all the antecedents of the TPB have a statistically significant correlation with EI. The findings suggest that the TPB can be regarded as a useful tool for evaluating students’ EI.

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Effects of Gender on Students’ Entrepreneurial Intentions: A Theory of Planned Behaviour Perspective

The purpose of this study is to examine the determinants of entrepreneurial intention among secondary school learners in Mamelodi, South Africa. More specifically, the study aims to test whether the theory of planned behaviour can predict entrepreneurial intentions of secondary school learners in Mamelodi. Secondly, the study seeks to determine the effect of the media and status of entrepreneurship and knowledge of entrepreneurial support on entrepreneurial intentions of these learners.  A cross-sectional survey was conducted using a sample of 349 learners from 11 secondary high schools in Mamelodi. A structured self-administered questionnaire was used for data collection and SPSS Version 25 was used to analyse the data. Findings revealed that entrepreneurial intentions of secondary school learners were predicted by perceived behavioural control, attitude towards entrepreneurship and subjective norms. The media and status of entrepreneurship had a significant positive relationship with entrepreneurial intention, subjective norms, attitude towards entrepreneurship and perceived behavioural control. Knowledge of entrepreneurial support did not have a significant effect on entrepreneurial intention and the antecedents of entrepreneurial intention.

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Determinants of Entrepreneurial Intentions of Secondary School Learners In Mamelodi South Africa

The purpose of this paper is to investigate entrepreneurial motivation among final year commerce students in Limpopo and Mpumalanga, and to determine the relationship between entrepreneurial motivation, entrepreneurial intention and the antecedents of entrepreneurial intention A cross-sectional survey was conducted on a sample of 496 students using a structured questionnaire Data were analysed by means of SPSS Version 26 Findings revealed that the respondents valued both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards and the need for independence in their decision to start a business Results show that entrepreneurial motivation had a statistically significant positive relationship with entrepreneurial intention and its antecedents

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Mmakgabo Justice Malebana

Papers

Determinants of Entrepreneurial Intentions of Secondary School Learners In Mamelodi South Africa

The Effect of Entrepreneurial Motivation on Entrepreneurial Intention of South African Rural Youth