Revisiting the role of behavioral control and entrepreneurial identity in empirical entrepreneurial intention research: a TPB approach

Purpose: The presented paper aims at providing novel evidence on entrepreneurial intention and it’s antecedence from the perspective of theory of planned behavior and identity in the entrepreneurial university context. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study is based on a sample of 300 respondents obtained at a German university of applied sciences and consisting of students, scientific and non-scientific staff and alumni. The data was analyzed through IBM SPSS and Smart PLS to test the four hypotheses related to entrepreneurial intention and its antecedents. Findings: The study provides a critical perspective on the usefulness of the TPB framework extended with identity for predicting the entrepreneurial intention in the entrepreneurial university context. Based on the study results, it is hypothesized that entrepreneurial intention is best explain through a combination of entrepreneurial attitudes, social norms in relation to entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial identity, while excluding behavioral control as the least important predictor with lowest relevance. This has implications both for TPB-based research as well as self-efficacy based research on entrepreneurial intention, as the two are considered to be related concepts. Research limitations and implications: Practical implications: Practical implications relate to demonstrating the usefulness of the TPB and identity for evaluating the entrepreneurial intention in terms of broad and diverse range of activities of an entrepreneurial university. Transfer managers, officers in incubators and accelerators can deploy and expand this approach to use it in diverse and mixed settings for comparing and mapping entrepreneurial intention among diverse set of stakeholders. Originality/value: The article empirically tests the combined theory of planned behavior and identity theory in a sample of diverse rspondents, beyond students to include also scientific and non-scientific staff of a university and alumni as important stakeholders in the entrepreneurial university. This is an important empirical and conceptual adition to existing literature with theoretial and practical implications.