THE ROLE OF PERCEIVED STRESS AND BURNOUT LEVELS ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTION AND SELF–EFFICACY

Abstract

The entrepreneurial intention is simply defined as one’s voluntarily and conscious efforts to establish his/her own business. It is highly influenced by both external (i.e. economic, cultural and political) factors which one cannot control by him/herself and internal (i.e. one’s personal characteristics and tendencies) factors under the relative control of oneself. However, the literature is far more extant on internal factors influencing one’s entrepreneurial intention rather than the external factors. With an internal perspective, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, which aims to measure one’s beliefs about his/her ability to successfully launch a new business, is widely accepted as one of the strong predictors to determine his/her entrepreneurial intention as a psychological factor. Although the direct relationship between self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intention is investigated, there are a few researches to present the mediator/moderator variables affecting those two constructs. Thus, this study aims to analyze the effects of one’s level of stress and burnout as the potential interactive constructs on the relationship between his/her self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intention. In order to achieve this aim, a self-administrated questionnaire was conducted on a sample of 173 participants who took an “Applied Entrepreneurship” course in collaboration with Istanbul University, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Organization of Turkey and Turkish Labor Agency. The results showed that high levels of stress and burnout were associated with self-efficacy negatively and weakened the strong positive relationship between one’s self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intention.