Entrepreneurial education and intention within the tourism industry: Youths in King Cetshwayo District Municipality
Loading...
Date
2023
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Entrepreneurship education plays a crucial role in terms of enhancing entrepreneurial knowledge, skills and values for transforming societies. The aim of this study was to explore the influence of entrepreneurial education (ED) on entrepreneurial intention (EI) among youths in tourism-related and non-tourism related industries. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 400 purposively selected youths within the King Cetshwayo District Municipality (KCDM), KwaZulu-Natal Province of South Africa. The study employed two stages of data analysis. The first stage performed descriptive analysis and missing data analysis using IBM’s SPSS version 28. The second stage focused on construct validity and reliability testing, as well as the structural model (partial least squares - structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM)), which was tested using a multivariate analytical technique on SmartPLS software version 4.0.8.5. The study found that entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial passion (EP) both had a positive association with entrepreneurial intention; however, entrepreneurial meanings (EM) did not have a relationship with entrepreneurial intention for both tourism-related and non-tourism related industries. The results validate that a basic entrepreneurial education, focusing on the meanings of entrepreneurship, is not enough to influence EI among youths in KCDM. The results further reveal that gender, education level and family business experience among youths in KCDM did not demonstrate a statistically significant difference to EM, ED, EP and EI; however, certain entrepreneurial profiles (such as age group, starting own business in the future) and entrepreneurial attributes portrayed a positive correlation with EM, ED, EP and EI. The results suggest that there is an association between a variety of factors (such as entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial passion) and youths’ intention to start a business. The recommendations are offered to the King Cetshwayo District Municipality (KCDM) decision-makers (business support offices), the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA), as well as Tourism KwaZulu-Natal (TKZN) to encourage youth entrepreneurship. It is advised that, in the future, researchers conduct this study in other district municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal, and/or other provinces within South Africa, to develop a national model.
Description
A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Recreation and Tourism at the University of Zululand, South Africa [2023].