Entrepreneurial Ability, Technological Innovation and Self-Employment Among Students of the University of Cape Coast Entrepreneurial Ability, Technological Innovation and Self-Employment Among Students of the University of Cape Coast

Abstract

This study examined the effect of entrepreneurial abilities, technological innovation and self-employment among students of University of Cape Coast. It explored whether the technological innovativeness of the students and certain personal characteristics have any influence on their entrepreneurial intentions and their inclination of being self-employed. There was a stratified sampling selection of 379 undergraduate students of the University of Cape Coast, of various programmes for the study. The design employed for the study was the descriptive survey and questionnaire was used for the data collection. The statistical tools employed for this study were Statistical Package for Services Solution (SPSS) version 26 and Smart PLS version 3. The results of the study indicated that, entrepreneurial abilities have a positive influence on technological innovation and self-employment among the students of the University of Cape Coast. Some characteristics such as entrepreneurial self-efficacy, personal attitude, subjective norms, perceived behaviour control and entrepreneurial intentions were found to have positive influence on their self-employment intentions. Technological Innovation which was used as a mediating variable for the nexus between entrepreneurial abilities and self-employment was also found to have a higher positive influence on the self-employment intentions of the students of the University of Cape Coast. The study recommends that, the leadership of the University of Cape Coast must encourage students and precisely, the undergraduate regular students, by means of sensitizing them in every means they can and also imbedding in them the requisite entrepreneurial knowledge and skills to help them have the self-employment intentions.