The influence of institutional context on entrepreneurial intention: evidence from the Saudi young community

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of how a country’s institutional environment is impacting the young community’s entrepreneurial intention through perceived desirability and feasibility as mediators. Design/methodology/approach - This research applies and validates a measure of a country’s institutional profile for entrepreneurship to Saudi university students. This research develops a structural model to investigate the young community’s perceptions about their institutional context, desirability and feasibility and their influence on entrepreneurial intentions. Data was collected from 287 Saudi young communities (university students) from several public universities located in Riyadh. Structural equation modeling analysis was applied to examine the structural model of entrepreneurial intentions. Findings - Research findings revealed positive and significant relationships between institutional context dimensions and young community students’ perceived desirability and feasibility and between students’ perceived desirability and feasibility and their entrepreneurial intentions. Their perceived desirability and feasibility were shown to have positive full mediation effects on the relationships between institutional environment dimensions and entrepreneurial intention. Research limitations/implications - Research Implications are advanced to help researchers and practitioners in considering the institutional environment for promoting entrepreneurship. Limitations and future research directions are discussed for better generalization of findings and renewed streams of research in the field. Originality/value - To the best knowledge of the author, this research is one of the first studies to apply the scale on the institutional country profile to Saudi Arabia with a young community. Studies linking institutional profile to entrepreneurial intentions were also limited in developing countries having a young population. This might catch the attention of researchers, educators and policy-makers.