Assessing “ME generation’s”entrepreneurship degreeprogrammes in Malaysia

Muhammad Nizam Zainuddin and Mohd Rozaini Mohd RejabFaculty of Management, Multimedia University, Cyberjaya, Malaysia

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the effectiveness of undergraduates’ specialisedentrepreneurship programmes in Malaysian universities that have been made available to“ME generation” students. By analysing the antecedents and predicting self-employment intention,the paper evaluates the impact of such programmes upon the employability value of undergraduateswho are part of the ME generation in a developing country such as Malaysia.

Design/methodology/approach – A census survey was conducted on final and penultimate yearstudents from major public and private universities in Malaysia. From these data, analyses ofvariables that affect self-employment intention were performed, and the prediction of self-employmentintention was obtained.

Findings – The results show that the students do not perceive self-realisation as their most salientbeliefs and perceived that their entrepreneurship lecturers’ expectations towards them to becomeself-employed are not highly influential and need to be complied with. However, they believed thatspecialised entrepreneurship education (SEE) contributes to increasing entrepreneurial self-efficacyand subsequently towards their self-employment intention, and thus increases their employabilityvalue.

Research limitations/implications – This research only studies students’ self-employmentintention in their respective universities and not their actual behaviour. Results from the paper arelimited in ability to demonstrate “actual” outcomes that result from the interaction of the antecedentsin universities’ confinement.

Practical implications – The paper provides an important analysis of the current status ofentrepreneurship students in Malaysian universities. The findings provide insight on the developmentof effective entrepreneurship programme deliveries and methodologies.

Originality/value – The paper provides a basis to improve the effectiveness of SEE in Malaysianuniversities and in turn produce highly employable graduates.

Keywords Entrepreneurialism, Education, Universities, Malaysia, Employment

Paper type Research paper

IntroductionA new generation succeeding an older one is considered as a natural process in theemployment sector. This succession of employment roles (whether self-employed oremployed in an organisation) from one generation to the next (such as in the case ofBaby Boomers to Generation X and then to Generation Y) has spurred many interestingmanagement research. One research predicted that by 2010, 60 per cent of the full-timeemployment workforce in USA will consist of Generations X and Y (Martin andTulgan, 2001). In another related study, scholars examine the link between thegenerational differences particularly their unique mindsets with that of employabilityand economic opportunity (Thielfoldt and Scheef, 2004; Feyerherm and Vick, 2005).Both studies inform readers about the impacts and implications of generation gaps,

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Education þ TrainingVol. 52 No. 6/7, 2010pp. 508-527q Emerald Group Publishing Limited0040-0912DOI 10.1108/00400911011068469

and suggest suitable education and training methods for developing future competenthuman capital.

Traditionally, researchers have classified generations according to the year of birthand the types of exposure they experienced (Smola and Sutton, 2002; Leschinsky andMichael, 2004). Similarly, “ME generation” is defined as persons who were born in the1970s, 1980s and 1990s (Twenge, 2006). The word “ME” in “ME generation” refer to theword “Me” as in “I.” ME generation demonstrates perceived high levels of self-esteemto the extent of believing that world revolves around them. Prior research on MEgeneration has focused on higher education institutions (HEIs) practises and theirimpact on youth education (Greenberger et al., 2008).

In addition, the ME generation is associated with the extensive application ofinformation communication technology (ICT), which has become an integral part of theirlearning and lifestyle. ICT has enabled them to acquire and process more informationand knowledge than before, either inside or outside the classroom. Passig and Levin’s(2000) study on the complexity of the level of interaction of ICT-based learningapplications in universities found that students do not only study the subject matter, butalso learn how to deal with the synthetically programmed environment; mimicking thereal process of nature with or without the knowledge of consequences of such action.

These unique mindsets of ME generation coupled with ICT learning applicationhave imposed a greater challenge for higher learning institutes to deal with. Thiscombination makes them comparatively different to the previous generation withrespects to cognition; that is how they think and act in relation to education andtraining. Therefore, two pertinent questions arise from this issue of:

RQ1. Are the current practices in universities aligned with the high expectations ofME generation’s undergraduates?

RQ2. Do these practices facilitate the development skills that will improve theiremployability (whether self-employed or employed in an organisation) ofundergraduates?

Consequently, this paper aims to tackle these questions by focusing on the growinginterest of entrepreneurship education in a developing country such as Malaysia andaims to examine how the former contributes to the ME generation entrepreneurshipstudents’ employability.

Entrepreneurship education and employability initiativeMalaysia, as a developing country, strives to mould and manage its ME generation aspotent future human capital with high-employability value. This is important to tacklethe issue of the ME generation’s graduate unemployment problem that becameuncontrollable after 1997s economic crisis (Baharuddin, 2003). In turn, scholars havelong acknowledged the contributions of entrepreneurship as a social adjuster ( Jack andAnderson, 1999) within an economy that can lead to economic growth at either anational, regional and global scale (Dana, 2001; Garavan and O’Cinneide, 1994; Ibrahimand Soufani, 2002). Taking cues from scholars, the policy makers initiateentrepreneurship education at tertiary level as pro-active measures to manage thegraduate unemployment issue. Universities were given tasks to formulate their owncustomised entrepreneurship programmes based on established syllabi fromdeveloped countries as a model for implementations.

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However, like other developing countries, Malaysia’s education system is stilllagging behind developed countries’ infrastructures. According to The World Bank(2000), some longstanding problems that punctuate education and learning delivery indeveloping countries are:

. low-quality faculty;

. low level of intellectuality of students; and

. insufficient resources and autonomy.

These factors may limit the potential of the programmes. Recent revelations inMalaysia suggest two telling factors of unfavourable conditions:

(1) A relatively high volume (30.7 per cent) of graduates remained unemployed sixmonths after their convocation (Ministry of Higher Education, 2006).

(2) A low-conversion rate (2.4 per cent) of fresh graduates ventured into businessafter their tertiary education (Sittamparan, 2009).

This figure includes undergraduate students majoring in entrepreneurship and weresupposed to have become self-employed. This has led to questions on whether auniversity’s environment and the capability of academicians in conducting specialisedentrepreneurship education (SEE) impacts ME generation’s self-employment intentionand its extent.

In order to evaluate the current entrepreneurship education programme and itsimpact towards ME generation students, this paper assesses four main issues:

(1) The individual salient beliefs (SB) of students majoring in entrepreneurshipprogramme.

(2) The subjective norms (SN) towards entrepreneurship lecturers andsubsequently towards employment intention.

(3) The impact of SEE combined with ICT learning application on students’entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE).

(4) The predictive value of ESE towards students’ self-employment intention.

This study is also an attempt to answer a call from the entrepreneurship academia for abetter understanding of the impacts of entrepreneurship education towardsuniversities’ students (Cheng et al., 2009; Yusof et al., 2009; Zainuddin and Ismail,2010) especially in a developing country like Malaysia, who is modelling her educationsystem based on a developed country’s framework. Focusing on the ME generationwill provide a valuable insight on how to manage the ME generation effectively asan integral element in human capital development especially with respects toemployability.

The next sections will look at the mindsets of the ME generation; their exposure toSEE with ICT-based learning applications and the specific antecedent of ESE as anagent of self-employment intention. Following are discussions on the researchmethodology highlighting the issues pertaining to survey instruments and the natureof dataset. The subsequent section provides a detailed analysis of the study’s findingsand discussions in addressing the key research questions mentioned earlier. Next willbe policy implications and the last section concludes the study.

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ME generation: origin and mindsetsA generation is defined as an identifiable group that shares birth years and significantlife events at critical developmental stages; who share historical or social lifeexperiences; the effects of which are relatively stable over their lives (Kupperschmidt,2000). There are various generations found in literature for instance Baby Boomers,Generation X, Generation Y, Generation Millennium and ME generation. ME generationis categorised as people who are born in 1970s, 1980s and 1990s (Twenge, 2006).Accordingly, this birth cohort is characterised by high self-esteem, self-centeredness(narcissism), assertiveness and agentic (not comparable) traits that develop throughpersonal agency of intentionality, forethought, self-reactiveness and self-reflectiveness(Bandura, 2001). In contrast, they also possess a high level of external locus of control,increased anxiety and display heightened depressive symptoms.

In an attempt to explain the origin and the unique contrasting characteristics of theME generation, Twenge reasons the changes in culture includes shuffles in women’sroles, parenting, media and social connections. These young people acquired the idea ofself-esteem as being more important than achievement through the social cognitionprocess where Bandura (2001) explained that a person is actually a producer and productof social systems. Therefore, this idea of pride and dignity has eventually causedmembers of the ME generation to value self-esteem above everything else. For instance,throughout their childhood years, the ME generation has been repeatedly told (by theparents) that they are special and unique, their opinions are important, and they are ableto achieve anything as long as they follow their dreams. Such cognition of a highself-esteem image has been manifested in the form of mantras like “There is no singleright way to live,” “Be yourself,” “Believe in yourself,” “You must love yourself beforeyou can love someone else,” “As long as I believe in myself” and “I really do not care whatothers think.” Furthermore, having been portrayed they are the best amongst the best,this generation believes that every dream is attainable and this boosts theirself-confidence level each time they encounter new experiences such as enrolling intouniversity, entering the employment market, etc.

Although this generation possesses high self-esteem, in reality, they also showhigh-depressive symptoms. This is likely to happen when the former has turned theminto narcissists. With heightened internal expectations, they become easily anxious anddepressed when they discover the adversities of life. The clash between their highexpectations and reality intensifies and deepens as their life experiences become morecompetitive. One of the reasons cited was because ME generation has a higher externallocus of control as compared to previous generations, thus, are more likely to place blameon external factors such as other people, luck or even larger forces that they think arecontrolling their own fate, rather than on themselves. This is done in order to maintainhigh self-esteem. This results in anxiety and depression as they find that reality can beutterly different from what they originally perceive.

The obsession by parents in boosting their children’s self-esteem by over protectingthem from failure has denied them a critical benefit of failure itself. Although failurewill not make one “happy” at that point in time, the experience itself is a critical turningpoint in learning how to deal with adversities. Sheltering children from failure mayprotect them from some negative feelings, but will also prevent them from some of themost positive learning experiences in life.

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The sense of high self-esteem and high expectations have moulded ME generationperspectives and opinions towards their lecturers in universities. They are less likely torecognise the authority of lecturers and will become less conforming to knowledge theyreceive. Instead, they believe they are on an equal footing with experts and canoutperform what is expected of them. The unsightly side of an external locus of controlsomehow will overshadow their high self-esteem. Eventually, the ME generationstudents become self-absorbed in their own possession of knowledge, that lecturersand their knowledge in respective fields are perceived as irrelevant or obsolete.

From the original definition of SB of “what did the individual get from performing theobject in question” (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980), it is assumed that with high self-esteem,Generation ME have very high confidence levels of self-realisation as compared to otherentrepreneurial SB previously identified (Kolvereid, 1996). Generation ME assumes theyare able to attain anything that they wish. In the case of becoming an entrepreneur,the ME generation students saliently believed they have what it takes to self-realisingthe self-employment route.

From the definition of SN as a “perception of what important people in students’ livesthink about them in becoming self employed, weighted by the strength of the motivationto comply with them” (Krueger et al., 2000), this paper theorises ME generation’s areless likely conform to their lecturers’ expectation to become self-employed. Thisproposition is aligned with previous studies that revealed low SN to comply withlecturers’ expectation with respects to self-employment intention (Scholten et al., 2004;Linan et al., 2005).

SEE with ICT learning application in universities’ environmentSEE is defined as “a specific degree programme that exposes students to the possibilityof becoming self-employed” (Hytti and O’Gorman, 2004). Numerous studies have beenconducted to determine the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education towardsthe students in universities. For example, Luthje and Franke (2003) highlighted theimportance of contextual factors in the university environment such as facilitating theoccurrence and the intensity of entrepreneurial behaviours, and the orientations andbehaviours of students influenced by internal and external factors. In another research,Varela and Jimenez (2001) demonstrate that higher the investment in entrepreneurshipeducation, the higher the entrepreneurship rates. More recently, Souitaris et al. (2007)conceptualised “good entrepreneurship programmes” as balanced programmescomprising of a taught component, a business planning component, an interactionpractice component and a university support component.

Previous studies have established the relationship between SEE and ESE. Davidsson(1995) and Krueger and Brazeal (1994), for instance, found that education directly affectsself-efficacy because educational settings appear to be the fertile ground for thedevelopment of perceived self-efficacy. In a related study, Krueger and Carsrud (1993)discover that training programmes can have an impact on the antecedents of intentionidentified, which includes ESE. They observe that perceived self-efficacy is influencedby the acquisition of management tools and exposure to entrepreneurial situations.In addition, other scholars, e.g. Hansemark (1998), Ehrlich et al. (2000), Wilson et al.(2007) show that SEE had a positive impact, enhancing variables such as the need ofachievements, locus of control and self-efficacy and the likelihood of action at some point

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in the future. Moreover, Noel (2001) revealed that entrepreneurship education affects thepropensity to act as an entrepreneur, entrepreneurial intention (EI) and ESE.

In contrary, there are scholars who are critical about the practice of entrepreneurshipeducation. First, Dilts and Fowler (1999) argued that only certain teaching methods(i.e. traineeships and field learning) are more successful than others at preparingstudents for an entrepreneurial career. Therefore, if entrepreneurship academicians lackpedagogical knowledge and skills, it might affect the delivery of learning experiences tothe students. This concern was confirmed, Bennett (2006) found that academicians’definitions of entrepreneurship were influenced by their backgrounds and by thenumber of years they had worked in the business sector. Therefore, if lecturers lacked orhad no experience in enterprise ownership and management, they were unable toprecisely illustrate the entrepreneurship environment; and worst still, they wouldprovide the wrong perceptions of entrepreneurship to students. Thus, the level ofperceived feasibility and desirability transferred to students from academicians will beless substantial. According to Othman et al. (2006), there was not much of a difference inpersonality traits including self-efficacy between the graduate and non-graduateentrepreneurs in urban Malaysia, thus raising more concerns about the delivery ofentrepreneurship education in universities.

At the same time, the development of ICT proves as beneficial to the teachingcommunity as a whole. Solomon et al. (2002) stated that ICT allows lecturers tocommunicate better with students by sharing resources and ideas effectively. Moreover,ICT has provided an opportunity to deliver entrepreneurship education to its audiencethrough multiple sources of learning tools comprising of distance education andmulti-media lessons of both “real” and “virtual” courses which is made possible byinternet connectivity (Alberti et al., 2004). Consequently, the impact of ICT onself-efficacy cannot be discounted. Lee and Bertera (2007), for instance, proved thatgraduate students who use online forum demonstrate heightenings in self-efficacy andyet in another study, Kurbanoglu (2003) concludes that self-efficacy is closely linked toinformation literacy and lifelong learning.

Rapid innovation will eventually change the traditional academic roles from “the sageon stage” to “a guide on the side,” thus, there is a need to form a balanced approach ofeffective learning towards this generation. Anderson (2003) proposed a deep andmeaningful formal learning supporting one of the three forms of interaction(i.e. student-teacher; student-student and student-content interactions) at a high level.The other two may be offered at minimal levels, or even eliminated, without degradingthe educational experience. High levels of more than one of these three modes will likelyprovide a more satisfying educational experience, though these experiences may not beas cost- or timely effective as less interactive learning sequences. The combination ofSEE and the ICT-based learning application provide potent components in contributingstudents’ ESE.

Formation of EI through ESEAccording to Bird (1988), intention can be defined as a way of thinking that isstructurally rational and intuitive resulting from:

. social;

. political;

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. economic;

. personal history;

. personality; and

. personal ability factors.

These variables are assumed to be rigorously explored during students’ tenure inuniversity. Interestingly, she (Bird) argued that EI is something that is unique for anindividual, yet it can also be cultured and nurtured through the aforementioned variables.

Meanwhile, Learned (1992) suggested that the formation of intentions is the result ofthe interaction of psychological traits and background experiences of the individualwith situations that are favourable to entrepreneurship. Intention to found assumesthat some individuals will encounter situations that will interact with their traits andbackgrounds that cause the intention to become self-employed. Intentioned individualswill ultimately make the decision to start a business or abandon the attempt to start thebusiness depending upon the sense made of the attempt. In addition, entrepreneurialbehaviour, such as becoming self-employed, is intentional and best predicted byintention towards the behaviour (Krueger et al., 2000). According to Shapero and Sokol(1982), these factors are known as EI antecedents. Based on Ajzen’s (1991) theory ofplanned behaviour (TPB), Krueger et al. (2000) identified these antecedents as attitudestowards entrepreneurial behaviour, SN and ESE.

The EIs process may begin with the individual’s personal needs, values, wants,habits and beliefs (Bird, 1988). There are a lot of push and pull factors (Gilad andLevine, 1986; Orhan and Scott, 2001; Alstete, 2002; Reynolds et al., 2004) that mayaffect individual’s intentions to start a business as discussed earlier, and this mayinclude the characteristics of the individual as well as the conditions of the situation(Reynold, 1991). Based on earlier discussion, there are possibilities that MEgeneration’s characteristics may push them into the self-employment route.

The ESE can be defined as a judgement of students’ confidence in his or her ability tobecome self-employed (Armitage and Conner, 2001). It means that when studentsperceive an act as feasible, he or she will be more likely to execute it and this would becertain for ME generation individuals. Scholars argued that ESE had a very significantand positive effect on the likelihood of being an entrepreneur (Chen et al., 1998) andstudents who were entrepreneurship graduates had significantly higher levels of overallESE than their counterparts (De Noble et al., 1999). Armitage and Conner (2001), forexample, confirm that self-efficacy accurately predicts behavioural intentions. Onthe contrary, scholars also found that ESE factors did not significantly contribute to thevariation in the intentions to become self-employed if the behaviour is under completevolitional control (Kolvereid and Isaksen, 2006). Thus, ME generation entrepreneurshipstudents equipped with SEE are most likely intent to become self-employed.

As a general rule, the greater the ESE, the stronger the students intention towardsself-employment is expected to be. However, based on literature, not all EI followed thesame formula.

Methodology(i) Sampling methodAbout 186 final and penultimate year entrepreneurship students of the MEgeneration from four major public and private universities in Malaysia namely:

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Universiti Utara Malaysia (University 1), Universiti Malaysia Sabah (University 2),Universiti Tenaga Nasional (University 3) and Multimedia University (University 4)were sampled via a census survey. They were chosen because they are known as a groupwho are facing imminent career decision making (Krueger and Kickul, 2006; Kruegeret al., 2000).

(ii) Research operationalisationThe research questionnaire was constructed based on the modification of validatedprevious studies. A paper and a digital version were created. The questionnaire waspersonally administered at the respective universities and those unreachablerespondents (due to their practicum semester) were contacted and received the samevia their personal e-mail.

To measure the factors that influence the EI, the paper employed the variables usedin previous studies (Kolvereid and Isaksen, 2006; Kolvereid, 1996).

The dependent variable in this research is the students’ EI whether to becomeself-employed or employed in established organisation (Katz, 1992). The predecessorchoice of becoming self-employed is considered as having EI while the successor is not(Kolvereid, 1996). In line with the literature, there were ten items of four Likert-scalequestions developed based on modification from existing studies (Kolvereid, 1996;Kolvereid and Isaksen, 2006; Krueger et al., 2000; Linan and Chen, 2006; Tretten, 2005).

The independent variables employed in this model were:. Salient beliefs (SB). The first variable was measured using ten items that includes

five control items of SB that are concerned with the tendency of preferringemployment with an organisation. The respondents were asked to rate the randomitems according to their preference. The items were developed based on amodification of past validated studies of Kolvereid (1996).

. Subjective norms (SN). This second variable was measured using four items.Amongst the questions asked were the degrees of approval of entrepreneurshiplecturers in university towards students’ decision to become self-employed. Theitems were developed based on the modification of past studies (Kolvereid, 1996;Tretten, 2005). The higher the respondent rates, the higher compliance withsignificant ones.

. Specialised entrepreneurship education (SEE). The third variable was measuredusing nine items. Amongst the questions were the degree of agreeability thatentrepreneurship knowledge aids respondents to become self-employed, becomesuccessful entrepreneurs with their entrepreneurship degree and their confidencelevel in becoming self-employed. The items were developed based onmodification of past validated studies (Ajzen, 1991; Kolvereid, 1996).

. Entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE). The third variable was measured using16 items. Amongst the question asked were the factors that enabled respondentsto become self-employed, the degree of confidence that the students perceived inbecoming self-employed, degree of readiness and others. The items weredeveloped based on modification of past validated studies (Kolvereid, 1996;Ajzen, 1991; Linan and Chen, 2006; De Noble et al., 1999; Tkachev and Kolvereid,1999; Tretten, 2005). The higher the respondent rates, the higher the perceivedfeasibility of EI.

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(iii) Types of analysesFour types of analysis were performed:

(1) Collection of demographic profiles analysis: data such as students’ years ofstudy, university’s origin, age, gender and pre-university academic status werecollected.

(2) Descriptive analysis.

(3) Reliability analysis.

(4) Hypotheses testing of simple linear regression analysis.

All variables were measured using a four-point Likert scale as according to Ooi andAli (2004) a four-point Likert scale is more efficient than five-point Likert scale becauseit discourages respondents from taking a neutral position when giving a response, andthus eliminate neutrality.

(iv) Hypotheses formulationBased on discussions regarding relevant variables that formed the basis of theoreticalframework, the paper developed three hypotheses of:

H1. ME generation students’ SN towards their lecturers are less likely influencetheir self-employment intention.

H2. A combination of SEE and the ICT-based learning application will positivelycontribute to ME generation students’ ESE.

H3. ESE will increase the ME generation students’ self-employment intention.

Findings(i) Demographic profilesOf the 186 respondents, as depicted in Table I, the majority of respondents’ were finalyear students. About 67 per cent of them were from public universities with the femaleoutnumbered the male populations. Almost 94 per cent of them were in 21-25 years ofage. Many of them were Malaysian Higher School Certificate holders (66 per cent),followed by Malaysian School Certificate holders (12 per cent), Diploma holders(11 per cent) and others.

(ii) Descriptive analysisAs depicted in Table II, the detailed item-by-item results of descriptive analysis(means, standard deviations and Kolgomorov-Smirnov test) indicate thatself-realisation is not the most important SB perceived by respondents. Thiscontradicts ME generation literature with respects to self-realisation and self-esteem.

The finding implies that psychologically, the students want the best from bothcareer prospects of being self-employed and employed in organisation. This can bededuced by comparing five control items that were included in the SB construct.According to Kolvereid (1996), the five items that are associated with importantreasons for preferring a career as a self-employed person were economic opportunity,challenges, autonomy, self-realisation and participation in the whole process. The restof the items (SB 1 to SB 5) were control items concerning beliefs to be employed in anestablished organisation. Based on the result, the highest salient belief that students

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perceive is a predictable career path which refers to employment security. This stateof uncertainty may be caused by the lack of exposure and experience regardingreal complaints or appraisal between becoming self-employed and employed inorganisation. The confined place in the university, far from the business transactionsroutines and packed schedules, may have hindered their exposure from the real worldgain and loss and thus they may fail to realise the situations beyond theirpsychological scope as university students. In addition, resistance to change from thecomfort zone may also be a factor as well.

Items Frequency Percentage

StudentsFinal 132 71Penultimate 54 29UniversityUniversity 1 55 30University 2 69 37University 3 37 20University 4 25 13GenderMale 62 33Female 124 67AgeUnder 20 9 4.821-25 174 93.526-30 1 0.5Above 31 2 1.1Education levelSijil Pelajaran Malaysia (Malaysian Certificate of Examination) 22 12Sijil Tinggi Pelajaran Malaysia (Malaysian Higher School Certificate ofExamination) 122 66Diploma 21 11Matriculation 15 8Others 6 3Total 186 100

Table I.Demographic profiles

Items Meana SD K-S Rank

SB 1: Job security 3.61 0.59 5.491 2SB 2: Amount of work 2.86 0.58 5.184 4SB 3: Social environment 3.44 0.61 4.246 7SB 4: Responsibility 3.62 0.54 5.456 3SB 5: Predictable career path 3.66 0.58 5.767 1SB 6: Economic opportunity 3.56 0.61 5.104 5SB 7: Challenges 3.16 0.59 4.760 6SB 8: Autonomy 3.35 0.63 3.955 9SB 9: Self-realisation 3.37 0.61 3.984 8SB 10: Participation in the whole process 3.24 0.69 3.741 10

Notes: a1, very unimportant; 2, unimportant; 3, important; 4, very important

Table II.Mean and SD

analysis of SB

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(iii) Reliability analysisThe results of the reliability analysis from Table III show that all the variables werehighly reliable for regression analyses.

(iv) Hypotheses testing(a) The effect of SN towards self-employment intention. A simple linear regressionanalysis was used to check for the predictor value of SEE towards the ESE. As depictedin Table IV (Item 1), the adjusted R 2 result is 12.7 per cent. Based on the result, SN oflecturers is significant but with low explanatory power.

There are a few possible reasons that contribute to the results. First, the studentshave high locus of control (Krueger et al., 2000), therefore care less about what peoplearound them think of their career-decision making. Second, no lecturers within thestudents’ significant circle play a significant role in asserting their influence towards thestudents’ career choice, thus the students do not consider any ideas from them. Third,these are students who have been given freedom of choice to choose whatever route offuture undertaking without any obligation to any party. These findings are in tandemwith those by Scholten et al. (2004) and Linan et al. (2005). They perceived that lecturerseither do not qualify to advise them about their future career path because of the lack ofacademic credentials, expertise and entrepreneurial experience. This indicates thatstudents might have other people whom they perceive as significant and will comply totheir expectations when making career-related decisions. These significant people maybe their relatives who have already becoming successful entrepreneurs or other peoplewhom they admire as successful entrepreneurs. They probably have regularconversations regarding their career-making decisions with these people. This is truein the era of ICT where ME generation students have regular interactions can be madethrough digital media such as e-mail, short messaging services, instant messaging andsocial networks applications like Facebook and Twitter.

Constructs No. of questions Cronbach alpha

SB 10 0.831SN 4 0.745ESE 16 0.802SEE 9 0.920Self-employment intention 10 0.817

Table III.Results of reliabilityanalysis

Items R R 2 Adj. R 2 F Sig. level *

Dependent variable – self-employment intention 0.363 0.131 0.127 27.842 0.000Independent variable – SNDependent variable – ESE 0.688 0.474 0.447 17.618 0.000Independent variables – SEE with ICTDependent variable – self-employment intentionIndependent variables – ESE 0.750 0.562 0.521 13.573 0.000

Note: Significant at *0.01 level

Table IV.Results of regressionanalyses

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(b) The effect of SEE with ICT-based learning application towards students’ ESE.A simple linear regression analysis was used to check for the predictor value ofSEE towards the ESE. As depicted in Table IV (item 2), the adjusted R 2 result is44.7 per cent. Based on the regression result, a combination of SEE and the ICT-basedlearning application positively contributes to students’ ESE.

Based on the regression results, SEE positively and significantly influences students’ESE. The finding is in contradiction with literature that assumed ME generation tends tofind knowledge obsolete. In this case, students accept the current SEE that they receivefrom the universities. The result also indicates that there is a belief that specialisedentrepreneurship knowledge can help build their confidence to become a successfullyself-employed person. They may perceive that they receive new, meaningful knowledgeand as they develop, the more confident they become with their entrepreneurial ability.Nevertheless, there is a positive sign of the realignment of the entrepreneurshipeducation delivery process, which make the students’ ESE increase over time.

(c) The predictor value of ESE impact towards self-employment intention. A simplelinear regression analysis was performed to check for the predictor value of ESEtowards self-employment intention. As depicted in Table IV (item 3), the adjusted R 2

result is 0.521 and based on the regression result, students’ ESE positively affects thestudents’ self-employment intention.

Based on the correlation and regression results, the students’ ESE variable is foundto be positive and significantly influences students’ EI. These ME generation studentsare confident with their ability to become self-employed. This state of confidence wasderived from the overall perceptions of students regarding their justifications ofchoosing self-employment over employment in an established organisation based onthe degree of feasibility and viability they perceive in entering self-employment. In linewith ME generation literature, these students also believe that they possessindispensable qualities such as leadership, networking, knowledge, mental preparationand control over their decision to become self-employed.

Discussions(i) Salient beliefsThe paper recommends entrepreneurship based practicum as the best way to expose MEgeneration students with what they can expect from the world of entrepreneurship.According to Henley (2005), aspirations appear to be driven by displacement factorssuch as low dissatisfaction with current employment, rather than personal resourcesassociated with educational attainment, parental background and financial status.Thus, academicians need to introduce ways to integrate and expose the displacementfactors to students. In addition, the role of educators moves from the traditional“sage on stage” to becoming a “guide on the side” (Hannon, 2005) therefore, thisentrepreneurship-based practicum can expose the students with real life scenarios ofentrepreneur career options. The real exposure towards both working environments andopen discussions regarding expectations and realities will open up their minds of whatto expect in becoming self-employed. This experiential learning will reinforce alltheories and concepts that they acquired in the classroom. For example, an assignmentof meeting and interviewing real entrepreneurs (successful or not) and being exposed tothe realities of existing businesses can be assigned to the students in the future(Fletcher, 1999) enabling experiential learning to occur (Wani et al., 2004). This will lead

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to a higher level of understanding about how important their career-decision makingand its reasoning.

In addition, academicians should design assignments that focus solely onunderstanding SB in detail. The assignments should consist of tasks such as:discussion of each salient belief by defining it based on their comprehension and scholars’definition. Second, they need to perform case studies of established entrepreneurs andunderstand the rewards and costs involved in the selected entrepreneurs’ lives. Finally,students should run their own entrepreneurial ventures to confirm their tentative andactual definitions of SB.

(ii) Subjective normsThe paper suggests that in order to bridge the gap between the SN of lecturers and thestudents, there must be an effort to strengthen entrepreneurship culture in theuniversity with lecturers as focal points to deliver positive images of entrepreneurship.Lecturers should be trained to be able to appreciate the “entrepreneurial spirit” that ispossessed by students. Furthermore, there is growing literature that emphasises theeffectiveness of roles of mentors and professional people that influence students(Turker and Selcuk, 2009) thus, lecturers need to adapt and upgrade themselves tobecome specialist mentors. An environment with the “ability to enterprise” (Gnyawaliand Fogel, 1994) with lecturers as reliable mentors will change the perception ofstudents towards their lecturers as a source of information and aspiration. This willimprove the relationship between lecturers and ME generation students.

To develop and train specialist entrepreneurship lecturers and mentors, universitiesshould provide capacity development and professional development (special training,course and joint partnership in students’ business ventures) and also recognitionthrough promotion. Omar and Mohamed (2009) suggested a lecturers’ leave schemewhere they are encouraged to spend sabbatical or research leave at selected industriesas part of their own training programmes, not only to update their technologicalknow-how but also to be refreshed in areas related to entrepreneurship and to acquireideas on the operation and the maintenance of relevant industries.

Lecturers should adopt roles of coach, mentor and challenger and have the ability toprovide feedback in a constructive and relevant manner by redesigning entrepreneurshipdegree programmes which emphasise the enhancement of “entrepreneurial’ abilitiesand attitudes (Douglas and Shepherd, 2000). They also need to harness their intellectualskills and business acumen so that the students respect entrepreneurship educators aspersons with business experience and are not just theory-based persons. Perhapsacademicians should serve the three key pillars of academic enterprise of teaching,research and outreach (high-quality consultancy), thus they will become mutuallycomplementary with entrepreneurship students’ expectations (Carayannis, 2009). MEgeneration students want to see practical examples rather than purely academic theory.

(iii) SEE with ICT-based learning applicationsTo improve the delivery of universities’ entrepreneurship education, six mainphilosophies need to be addressed with emphasis on ICTs-based learning applicationsnamely:

(1) reviewing entrepreneurship education school of thought and objectives;

(2) realigning the learning process;

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(3) designing entrepreneurship education delivery methods;

(4) inclusion of integrated curriculum;

(5) enriching roles of entrepreneurship educators; and

(6) promoting non-formal pedagogical methods.

These steps can boost the delivery of entrepreneurship education and as studentsinteract with updated modules, they can cognitively engage with the above-mentionedphilosophies.

(iv) ESE towards self-employment intentionOne of the best ways to increase the level of ESE is to promote on-job practicalentrepreneurship training. This can be done by allowing students to manage their ownenterprises within the university’s environment and to provide them with variousalternatives, creative and innovative methods and solution. The more interaction theyhave with enterprises, the more rigorous in self-exploration, experience and knowledgethe students would be. Furthermore, these ME generation students will be betteracquainted with externalities inherent in entrepreneurial environment and how to dealwith the same obstacles and better understand the indigenous and exogenous factorsof entrepreneurship.

ConclusionsThe study provides an important analysis of the Malaysian universities’ environmentwith regards to SEE; ICT-based learning application; and antecedent impacts on MEgeneration students with regard to their self-employment intention.

Four research objectives were studied and the results show that self-realisation isnot the most important salient belief in contrary to ME generation mindsets. At thesame time, students do not want to comply with their respective lecturers and are lesslikely to recognise authority of lecturers and are non-conforming to knowledge thatthey receive. Instead, they believe that they are on an equal footing with the experts.Besides that, SEE coupled with the ICT-based learning application is found topositively support students’ ESE. Positive perception of ESE will subsequentlyincrease their self-employment intention and thus increases the employability values.

The present study is not without limitations. Several limitations were apparent andmust be considered. The research divides the limitations into two sub-sections:

(1) general; and

(2) specific.

First, the sample size was restricted to only to four Malaysian universities omittingother universities and higher education institutes. All respondents were reachedthrough limited methods available to the researcher due to the lack of resources. Theresearch specifically targeted students majoring in entrepreneurship thus omittedstudents from different majors who enrolled in entrepreneurship education throughelective subjects. If the same studies were to be carried out on other universities andHEIs, the results could have been different. However, the sample size is large enoughfor the results to be considered as valid (Sekaran, 2005).

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Second, this research was performed in a cross-sectional study within a limited timeperiod and focuses at one point in time. The results might be different if the researchwas based on a longitudinal design because the complex and dynamic interrelationshipbetween variables evolves over time. The employment intention may change over timethus a longitudinal study would be more suitable to grasp such detail.

As for the specific limitations, the research used a single item or limited item inmeasuring key constructs. Thus, it lacks the sophistication in assessing theemployment intention decision making in terms of the individual’s story,circumstances, contexts and complexities (Nabi et al., 2006). It is a known fact thatit is hard to measure the employment intention due to its reliance on subjectiveperceptions, some of which are abstract in nature. This was agreed upon by previousscholars who attempted to assess the EI model before (Autio et al., 2000; Krueger et al.,2000; Peterman and Kennedy, 2003). Furthermore, the results of their intent study arelimited, precisely because of the reliance on what students said they were likely to do inthe future (Galloway and Brown, 2002).

Second, the EI model will remain as intention. The transition from EIs to actualstartups is often assumed in the literature, but is under-researched when it comes to thecareer development and decision-making processes. According to Nabi et al. (2006),graduate career choices are highly complex, contextualized and diverse processes thatentail elements of various theoretical perspectives and are not to universally accepted“general theory.” Connection between training, support, intent and actual career choiceto start-up businesses remain under investigated. Given the complexity of thecareer-decision processes a simple relationship cannot be expected. In addition, thereare too many alternative intention models available thus reducing the reliability of aconsistent definition of EI. According to Shook et al. (2003), there is a need to integrateand reduce the number of alternative intention models and to use a consistentdefinition of entrepreneurial intent.

Third, the research merely assesses the ability of this model to predict intentions.Ultimately the research is more interested in actual behaviour. It remains to be seen thatintending to start a business is well predicted by intentions. The students in the studywere ME generation students facing an immediate career choice for whom starting abusiness may be a realistic option. Nonetheless, they are still students. Researchers andpractitioners may thus be sceptical, even if the sample was valid. But studententrepreneurs are unlike other students and unlike entrepreneurs (Robinson et al., 1991).

Finally, there was a difficulty in establishing significant relationships between SNand university students’ start-up intentions even though life histories and socialexpectations from family and significant others often play fundamental roles in careerdecision making. Reliance on simple questionnaire measures may have provedunsatisfactory in assessing the role of significant others in highly individualisedcareer-making processes (Autio et al., 2001).

The results of this research have raised more questions and possibilities for futurestudies. First, the sample size needs to be enlarged so that it can capture the highergeneralization impacts. By including other universities and HEIs, the reach andrichness of the study should be expected to give better indicators in the future.

Furthermore, the longitudinal research design should be carried out in order totrack the following batch of entrepreneurship students to assess the impacts ofentrepreneurship education over time.

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Future research can provide a comprehensive comparison study betweenentrepreneurship education delivery in both private and public universities anddetermine which entrepreneurship education course is more effective. From the findings,efforts can be made to identity, synergise and blend the most effective methods.

Finally, further studies can also integrate various EI models to capture some othervariables missing from the TPB model. The variables such as disposition, trigger,push-pull, cognitive factors of ME generation students and others should be consideredin a new research framework.

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About the authorsMuhammad Nizam Zainuddin concluded his MPhil study from Multimedia University, Cyberjaya,Malaysia in 2009 and graduated from Universiti Tenaga Nasional in BBA (Hons) EntrepreneurDevelopment in 2002. His areas of specialisation are entrepreneurship, ICT, creativity andinnovation and behavioural science. He is a Lecturer at the Faculty of Management, MultimediaUniversity, Malaysia. Muhammad Nizam Zainuddin is the corresponding author and can becontacted at: muhammad.nizam@mmu.edu.my

Mohd Rozaini Mohd Rejab holds a Master’s Degree in Information Management from MARAUniversity of Technology, Malaysia. His areas of interests are strategy and management history.He is currently lecturing at the Faculty of Management, Multimedia University, Malaysia.

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