Factors That Drive Qatar University Students To Digital Entrepreneurship In Qatar: Motivational Factors Identification

Abstract

As part of the Qatar National Vision 2030, transforming the State of Qatar into a global, knowledge-based, and diversified economy will be accomplished by enhancing the skills of human capital that are related to research and development, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Drawing upon the theory of planned behavior (TPB), this exploratory study aims to examine the relationship between personality characteristics and contextual factors with their association to the attitudes, the perceived behavioral control, and subjective norms, that determine digital entrepreneurial intentions (DEI) of students at Qatar University. It also seeks to test the association between entrepreneurial knowledge and DEI for the studied group of students. The integrated research model was created by combining the three introduced TPB motivational drivers and the level of digital entrepreneurial knowledge as an additional motivational factor related to DEI for students at Qatar University. A total of 203 students completed the digital entrepreneurial intention questionnaire. The study sample was collected randomly from students attending all of the different colleges at Qatar University. The results show that students’ attitudes towards digital entrepreneurship are not associated with their propensity towards risk-taking and locus of control. It was also found that social and cultural views have no relation to the students’ DEI. However, perceived support and perceived barriers were found to have a strong relationship with Qatar University students’ perceived behavioral control. Digital entrepreneurial knowledge showed a high association with the three TPB motivational factors; it was also found to have a direct positive relationship with DEI. While there were no significant differences were found between male and female students, students in the College of Business and Economics showed a higher DEI in comparison to students in other colleges at Qatar University. Very few previous studies have addressed the motivational factors associated with DEI among university students in Qatar, in general, and Qatar University students more specifically. Therefore, this study contributes to identifying the critical motivational factors associated with digital entrepreneurship among university students and it provides information that could be useful for policy- and decision-makers.