The influence of perceived entrepreneurial competencies and intentions on the willingness of dirty workers to become entrepreneurs

Shava, Herring https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2094-9585

Title: The influence of perceived entrepreneurial competencies and intentions on the willingness of dirty workers to become entrepreneurs
Creator: Shava, Herring https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2094-9585
Subject: Entrepreneurship
Subject: Businesspeople
Subject: Work -- Psychological aspects
Date Issued: 2018-06
Date: 2018-06
Type: Doctoral theses
Type: text
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/29076
Identifier: vital:76601
Description: This study was undertaken primarily to investigate the influence of entrepreneurial competencies and intentions on willingness to become an entrepreneur for employees involved in dirty work, classified to be physical. Extant literature indicated that owing to the stigma attached to the nature of dirty work, people involved therein find it difficult to create a positive social identity as they are marginalised and considered people of low status. As a result of this stigma, employees involved in dirty work could turn to entrepreneurship, a boundaryless career with a probability of gaining hefty economic rewards in return. Economic rewards comprise, for example, money that is used by individuals to turn around their poor backgrounds or low status into respected figures as well as role models in their societies. However, for employees to be willing to demonstrate entrepreneurial activities, it was argued that they should possess high levels of entrepreneurial competencies. The same argument was advanced with regard to entrepreneurial intentions. It was argued that for employees involved in dirty to be willing to consider entrepreneurship as a career choice, they should possess a high score for entrepreneurial intentions. The study was undertaken in selected towns in the Eastern Cape Province. Primary data was collected from 348 employees involved in dirty work through a self-administered questionnaire. Primary data, quantitative in nature, was analysed through factor analysis, Pearson correlation and regression analysis to arrive at meaningful findings. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 24 was used. The study found that entrepreneurial competencies have a positive significant influence on willingness to become an entrepreneur. This was because employees involved in dirty work had a relatively high score with regard to entrepreneurial competencies. It was also observed that entrepreneurial intentions of employees involved in dirty work had no significant influence on their willingness to become entrepreneurs. This could have been caused by the fact that employees involved in dirty work had an entrepreneurial intent score slightly above average (not high enough). In other words, entrepreneurial competencies better predict willingness to become an entrepreneur for employees involved in dirty work compared to entrepreneurial intentions, which had no unique contribution towards their willingness to becoming entrepreneurs. The majority of South Africans have attempted to pursue entrepreneurship as a career without meaningful success as is evident in the high failure rate of SMEs currently pegged between 60 and 80percent depending on the province. It is not known to what extent employees involved in dirty work are part of these entrepreneurship start-up attempts. In light of the study’s findings, there is need to evaluate the quality of entrepreneurial competencies of employees involved in dirty work including other aspiring entrepreneurs before they can be encouraged to start their own initiatives. The revised or modified EPAI tool comes in handy in making individuals in South Africa to be aware of their entrepreneurial competency levels. This will ensure that people who are recruited for formal and informal entrepreneurship courses and training programmes in various communities are the intended recipients of these programmes leading to effective utilisation of scarce resources. More importantly, this will be an essential step towards providing the society with entrepreneurs and self-employers who will contribute to overall building of the economy through employment creation and boosting the economic situation. Given the average entrepreneurial intent score observed, there is a need to come up with viable programmes that will stimulate entrepreneurial intentions for employees involved in dirty work to raise them beyond the average level. One of the relevant programmes for the task of raising entrepreneurial intentions could be entrepreneurial education, particularly short courses where learning by doing will constitute the greater part of the curriculum (practical activities).
Description: Thesis (PhD (Industrial Psychology)) -- Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, 2018
Format: computer
Format: online resource
Format: application/pdf
Format: 1 online resource (360 leaves)
Format: pdf
Publisher: University of Fort Hare
Publisher: Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities
Language: English
Rights: University of Fort Hare
Rights: All Rights Reserved
Rights: Open Access

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