Abstract:

The reasons that a university student perceives to create their own enterprise are diverse, as well as the motivations or barriers. The purpose of the research was the analysis of motivations and obstacles toward of the entrepreneurial intent of university students belonging to respectively a private institution, the Catholic University of Cuenca, and a public, the University of Cuenca, both situated in the city of Cuenca, Ecuador.

A quantitative method utilizing Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) based variance Partial Least Square (PLS) was conducted to assess if significant differences exist in the motivation and obstacles in the entrepreneurial intention to undertake between the students of both institutions. A total of 400 male and female students participated in the survey.

Results revealed that the students of both institutions, show that the entrepreneurial intention is not supported by the obstacles. In addition, the motivations are significant only in the public university in especially in the aspect of putting the ideas into practice. Furthermore, the motivations of the students of the private university is not significantly affected by the entrepreneurial intention.

Study results were used to suggest to Higher Education Institution (HEI) to improve the quality of study programs to motivate the students to creation of enterprises and another tools to support entrepreneurship as well as the development of competences in the curricula to mitigate the difficulties of entrepreneurial initiative.

Keywords:

Motivations, obstacles, entrepreneurial intention, university students, private and public university.