Institutional environment and entrepreneurial cognitive antecedents in shaping new venture start-up intention: An investigation of higher education students of Ethiopia

There is a lack of research on the effect of institutional forces on entrepreneurship activity in developing countries. Moreover, there is a call by scholars to investigate the indirect effect of institutions on entrepreneurship. Therefore, drawing on Institutional Theory and Theory of Planned Behavior, the purpose of this thesis is to analyze the impact of the institutional environment(regulatory, cognitive, and normative institution) perceptions, and entrepreneurial cognitive factors (Personal attitude & Perceived behavioral control) on entrepreneurial intention (EI) of undergraduate students of Ethiopia. By doing so, this study adds new insights into literature and proposed a new research direction for future study. The study employed a concurrent triangulation mixed-method design, where both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis techniques applied simultaneously. Quantitative data was collected using a survey technique from 431 students of three universities and analyzed by structural equation modeling, whereas qualitative data were collected using a face-to-face interview with 15 students and analyzed using thematic analysis technique. Additionally, secondary data were also utilized to reveal important aspects of what institutional factors influence the entrepreneurial intention of university students in Ethiopia. The study results revealed that both regulatory and cognitive institutions have an insignificant effect on student's EI. Hence, the finding suggests that to increase venture creation intention of young generations, policymakers or any other concerned agencies should emphasis on building supportive regulatory and cognitive institutional forces. As the study expected, the result indicates normative institutional arrangements support for EI much more matter than other institutional environment features. Hence, the institutional environment conceptualization in a developing economy never underestimates the role of local traditions in stimulating entrepreneurship. Keywords: Entrepreneurial Intention, Ethiopia, Institutional Theory, Theory of Planned Behavıor