Business students’ attitudes toward innovation and intentions to start their own businesses

This research integrates perspectives from models of entrepreneurial intentions and attitude theory to examine the nature of the relationship between business students’ attitudes toward innovation and their intentions to start their own businesses. Multiple regression analysis revealed a positive association between attitude toward the distal and broad object of innovation and intentions of US business students to engage in the specific behavior of starting a business. Multiple mediation analysis revealed this association is partially mediated by attitudes toward the proximal and specific object of starting a business, operationalized as perceived desirability and feasibility of starting a business. As attitudes are open to change, opportunities exist for educators and practitioners to affect entrepreneurial intentions by affecting attitudes toward relevant, broad objects, such as innovation.