Science Research Management ›› 2020, Vol. 41 ›› Issue (5): 269-278.

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Effect mechanism of independence motivation and subjective norms on entrepreneurship intention

Chen Ge1, Shi Jin2   

  1. 1. Business School, Shantou University, Shantou 515063, Guangdong, China; 
    2. Ford Motor Research and Engineering (Nanjing) Co., Ltd, Nanjing 210000, Jiangsu,China
  • Received:2017-06-28 Revised:2018-05-31 Online:2020-05-20 Published:2020-05-21

Abstract: Nowadays, mass entrepreneurship and innovation is a fresh wave in China, and Chinese has published many policies to encourage and support entrepreneurship. And the after-90s young people are regarded as the generation who are influenced by western culture. They seem to take more highly of freedom, individuality, and independence. Therefore, to become an entrepreneur is an attractive choice for some college graduates. Many researchers focus on the drive for individual entrepreneurship. Many researchers agreed that the intention for entrepreneurship is the drive for individual entrepreneurial behaviors. Furthermore, the factors influence the entrepreneurship motivation arise researchers′ attention. The theory of planned behavior is one of effective models to interpret the effect mechanism. Factors in TPB, personal attitude towards entrepreneurship and perceived behavioral control are significant predict factors for entrepreneurship intention, while subjective norms′ effect on intention of entrepreneurship is still controversial. So do personal attitude towards entrepreneurship and perceived behavioral control still have impact on intention of entrepreneurship in China? Do subjective norms make effect on the entrepreneurship intention? What are the relationship among these factors? These questions are needed to be solved. And the other question is that there are quite different views on the source of the entrepreneurial intention. Some researchers hold the view that specific personal traits of entrepreneur make who they are, for example, grit, courage, and need for independence, which value the specific people. And the other researchers think the situation perceived by entrepreneurs, which value the specific situation. The researchers of this article hope to integrate both theories based on the Person-Situation Interactions Theory. 
〖JP2〗Based on the Theory of Person-Situation Interactions, the researcher made an investigation among 370 post-90s young people in a college in Guangdong province, China, to discuss the effect mechanism of the motivation for the independence and subjective norms on the intention of entrepreneurship in Chinese context. The researchers made duplexing translation and cross check to make the scale asaccurate as possible. The researchers got back 370 effective questionnaires among 425 questionnaires. In this survey, male youngsters make up 34.6%, and female youngsters account for 65.4%, and most are 20-30 years old and 64.9% respondents don′t have any work experience. The researchers raise five hypotheses based on the literature. First, independent motivation makes influence on the intention for entrepreneurship through personal attitude towards entrepreneurship. Second, subjective norms make positive effects on the entrepreneurship intention. Third, subjective norms make impacts on the entrepreneurship intention through the attitude towards entrepreneurship. Forth, subjective norms makes effect on the entrepreneurship intention by perceived behavioral control. Fifth, need for independence negatively moderates the relationship between subjective norms and intention of entrepreneurship, which means the stronger need for independence, the weaker relationship between the subjective norms and entrepreneurship intention. The last one, the need for independence positively moderates personal attitude towards entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship intention. Then, the research applied confirmatory factor analysis to test the reliability and validity of factors. At last, Sobel mediation analysis and regression analysis were used to examine the hypotheses.
The results of the research show that the motivation for independence positively affects the entrepreneurship intention by the complete mediating role of the personal attitude towards entrepreneurship′s complete mediating role; the subjective norms make the positive effect on positively affect the entrepreneurship intention directly, and it can also play the role indirectly by the personal attitude towards entrepreneurship and the perceived behavioral control plays as the mediating factor in the relationship between the subjective norms and the entrepreneurship intention. The results also present the need for independence moderates positively the relationship between the subjective norms with the entrepreneurship intention, and it moderates negatively the relationship between the personal attitude towards entrepreneurship with the entrepreneurship intention.
Based on the person-situation interaction theory, this research tries to integrate the theory of critical traits for entrepreneurship intention and theory of perceived situation for entrepreneurship intention. And this research also extend the predict factors of the entrepreneurship invention. The result shows that the independence motivation makes effect on the intention for entrepreneurship through the personal attitude towards entrepreneurship. Younger who is chasing much independence tend to be entrepreneur because they don′t need to work for anyone except themselves. The subjective norms have the influence on the personal attitude towards entrepreneurship and perception of situation. In the same situation, some people feel more supported, so they are more optimistic and confident, and they don′t think it is very hard to start their own business. It makes them tend to be entrepreneurs. For the whole society, a relaxing and supportive social environment is necessary for youngsters. The research also finds that the need for independence is the important factor for entrepreneurship intention. Compared with youngsters who have high-level need for independence, those who have low-level need for independence prefer to start their own business when they received help and encourage from their families and friends because they don′t mind being dependent. Youngsters who hold positive attitude towards entrepreneurship with the high-level need for independence tend to choose entrepreneurship than those with low-level need, because entrepreneurs bear more responsibility for profits or losses of their own business. Therefore, the way to encourage youngsters seems to vary for people with different traits.
There are still some limitations of this research: first, the questionnaire were collected at the some time. In the future, more questionnaires can be made at different time. Second, most questionnaire were finished by colleges in Guangdong Province, so the result may not be applicable for youngsters from other provinces or youngsters with different education background. Third, there are still bias in this research. In the future, there are some topics which can be further focus on. For examples, is there influence on intention of entrepreneurship from the interaction between other personal traits, like intention for achievement, risk aversion, with the perceived situation. Whether the results of this research are still applicable in other cultural context, according to Hofstede′s five dimensions. To conclude, there are still some further exploration about this topic.

Key words: entrepreneurship intention, independence motivation, subjective norms, need for independence