Economic development of community by entrepreneurship: An investigation of the entrepreneurial intent and the institutional support to the local community in Al-Kharj region

The purpose of the present study is twofold, to investigate the entrepreneurial intent of the university students and to chalk out with the factors (educational) to be considered for institutional support by the university under study. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) questionnaire was adopted and administered along with a separate sixteen items sheet containng the items pertaining to the institutional suppot mechanisms. Overall, 370 responses were collected from both male & female students. The Data was analysed by applying correlations, linear and hierarchical regression and exploratory factor analysis (EFA). The results of the study reaffirm the theory of planned behaviour in Saudi context with a significant variance of 43.2 percent in explaining students’ entrepreneurial intent. However, in the present case it is found that both attitude and perceived behavioral control are the significant predictors of entrepreneurial intent. Moreover, the subjective norm did not significantly predict the entrepreneurial intent. The findings also suggest a four steps generic model of institutional educational support for entrepreneurial nurturement to the local community.