The effect of intellectual capital on entrepreneurial intention: The case of Gaziantep province

Intellectual capital, extremely important for businesses, is one of the concepts which has developed rapidly in recent years. Another concept thought to be related to the intellectual capital is entrepreneurial intention. The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of intellectual capital on entrepreneurial intention. The research was concucted with quantitavie research and was carried out with 382 participant, selected according to the technique of simple probability sampling, working in the textile sector in 2nd Organized Industrial Zone in Gaziantep province. In the research, a questionnaire consisting of 3 sections was used. In the first section of the questionnaire, questions related to the socio-demographic characteristics of the employees, in the second section the "Intellectual Capital Scale" and in the third section the "Entrepreneurial Intention Scale" were used. Intellectual Capital Scale is a 7-point Likert-style scale with 14 statements, developed by Subramaniam and Youndt (2005) and whose Turkish validity and reliability study was conducted by Özdemir and Taşçı (2017). The Entrepreneurial Intention Scale is a 6-item and 7-point Likert-style scale developed by Linan and Chen (2009), whose Turkish validity and reliability study was conducted by Şeşen and Basım (2012). A preliminary pilot study was conducted on the data with 30 participants to reveal the validity and reliability of data collection tools at first, and the validity and reliability of the measurement tools were tested with Exploratory Factor Analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis secondly, and then the main application was made. In data analysis, it was given frequency and percentage distributions of sociodemographic information of the participants firstly, given descriptive statistics and comparative statistics regarding the intellectual capital with dimensions and entrepreneurial intention with dimensions of the participants secondly, and given association of intellectual capital with entrepreneurial intention and its effect on entrepreneurial intention finally. As a result of the research, it was determined that the intellectual capital of the participants was associated with entrepreneurial intention and had an effect on entrepreneurial intention. Keywords: intellectual capital, entrepreneurial intention, textile employeses