Entrepreneurial intention of Bangladeshi students: impact of individual and contextual factors

The purpose of the present study is to test how do the four important psychological antecedents, namely need for achievement (nAch), propensity to risk (PtR), self-confidence (SeC), internal locus of control (IlC) are mediated by the entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) to predict the entrepreneurial intention (EI) in a traditionally oil-based Saudi economy striving for economic diversification. Hypotheses are tested by applying the partial least square (PLS) structural equation modeling (SEM) to a sample of 282 undergraduate business students (male and female) collected from a public university of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The results suggest that psychological variables and self-efficacy play a fundamental role in enhancing entrepreneurial intention (EI) of Saudi students. Personality-related variables have direct influence over EI in other context, but in Saudi context, psychological variables are necessary but not sufficient to develop entrepreneurial intention unless combined with self-efficacy. Self-efficacy has a strong mediating effect between psychological variables and entrepreneurial intentions in Saudi context.

In today’s organizational environment, human resources are seen to be one of the most crucial assets that must be maintained, particularly the existence of employees’ proactive behavior, which is needed for the sustainability of organizational performance. One factor, which may affect the employees’ proactive behavior, is organizational politics. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to investigate the effect of organizational politics on proactive behavior of government employees and to test further whether this effect was moderated by self-efficacy. This study used a quantitative approach with an exploratory method to answer the proposed hypothesis. The samples were 310 local government employees in Bandung district, Cimahi City, Bandung City, and West Bandung Regency, Indonesia. For processing the data and testing the hypotheses, this research employed Moderated Regression Analysis by using STATA 13. The results showed that organizational politics has a negative effect on the proactive behavior of government employees, and the moderation effect of self-efficacy can weaken the negative relationship between organizational politics and proactive behavior. The study, therefore, makes a valuable contribution regarding the additional evidence to the organization within this field.

Work-life balance is a common topic that has been brought up along with human necessity to maintain life balance, as employees currently have some considerations related to their high productivity at work. High self-efficacy is one thing that employees should have in order to stay in their workplace. Banks are among businesses that have fierce competition with regard to quality and customer service as well as employee management. This is the reason why this study was conducted in an Indonesian government-owned bank as the problem of employee turnover is considered relatively serious in order to get more benefits in one’s working life. This study aims to analyze the relationship between self-efficacy and work-life balance on employee engagement. The sample comprised 280 employees, and data analysis used was SEM PLS. The results showed that self-efficacy had 75% and work life balance had a 79% effect on employee engagement, which were proved by the fact that employees are professionally responsible for their duties at work without neglecting their family responsibilities. With such results, banks should consider reconstructing their employee management, since salary is no longer the top priority for employees to work but they also consider life balance. Employees need to spend their time with their families while remaining on their track in work productivity. They also need appreciation, recognition and pride to keep their self-efficacy in their work performance.