THE RESEARCH ON THE IMPACT OF PROACTIVE PERSONALITY ON ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTION OF COLLEGE STUDENTS: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY BASED ON THE THEORY OF PLANNED BEHAVIOR
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Abstract
Entrepreneurial activity is a crucial driving force of modern economic and social development, playing an important role in creating employment opportunities and fostering human capital in the context of an increasingly competitive labor market. Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), this study investigates the influence mechanism of proactive personality on entrepreneurial intention. Empirical data were collected from 1,029 undergraduate students from five universities in Hebei Province, People’s Republic of China. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was employed to systematically test the proposed hypotheses. The results indicate that proactive personality has a statistically significant positive effect (p < 0.05) on entrepreneurial self-efficacy, entrepreneurial attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. All four psychological variables exert significant positive effects on students’ entrepreneurial intention and function as partial mediators between proactive personality and entrepreneurial intention. Among them, perceived behavioral control demonstrates the strongest indirect effect, accounting for 13.03% of the total effect. In addition, entrepreneurial family background plays a statistically significant positive moderating role. The findings confirm the applicability of the Theory of Planned Behavior in the context of Chinese university students and extend this framework by integrating proactive personality as an important individual trait in the formation of entrepreneurial intention. Furthermore, the results provide practical implications for higher education institutions and policymakers in promoting the development of future entrepreneurs in a more systematic and explicit manner.
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References
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