| Abstract: |
The tourism sector is a sector with many opportunities for business
development. Entrepreneurship in this sector promotes economic growth and job
creation. Knowing how entrepreneurial intention develops facilitates its
transformation into entrepreneurial behaviour. Entrepreneurial behaviour can
adopt a causal logic, an effectual logic or a combination of both. Considering
the causal logic, decision-making is done through prediction. In this way,
entrepreneurs try to increase their market share by planning strategies and
analysing possible deviations from their plans. Previous literature studies
causal entrepreneurial behaviour, as well as variables such as creative
innovation, proactive decisions and entrepreneurship training when the
entrepreneur has already created his or her firm. However, there is an obvious
gap at a stage prior to the start of entrepreneurial activity when the
entrepreneurial intention is formed. This paper analyses how creativity,
proactivity, entrepreneurship education and the propensity for causal
behaviour influence entrepreneurial intentions. To achieve the research
objective, we analysed a sample of 464 undergraduate tourism students from two
universities in southern Spain. We used SmartPLS 3 software to apply a
structural equation methodology to the measurement model composed of nine
hypotheses. The results show, among other relationships, that causal
propensity, entrepreneurship learning programmes and proactivity are
antecedents of entrepreneurial intentions. These findings have implications
for theory, as they fill a gap in the field of entrepreneurial intentions.
Considering propensity towards causal behaviour before setting up the firm is
unprecedented. Furthermore, the results of this study have practical
implications for the design of public education policies and the promotion of
business creation in the tourism sector. |