Original Article
Does Career Planning Drive
Agri-entrepreneurship Intention
Among University Students?
Mohua Banerjee
1
, Sayoni Biswas
2
, Poulomi Roy
3
, Sharmistha Banerjee
3
,
Suneel Kunamaneni
4
and Alfred Chinta
4
Abstract
The rationale behind this study is to test the apathy of the rural youth to engage in agriculture as
their profession. This research was conducted across five universities in eastern India on a sample of
345 postgraduate students to analyse their agri-entrepreneurship intent and the determinants of agri-
entrepreneurship. The findings of the study show a significant positive correlation among the variables of
agri-entrepreneurship intent and career planning and agri-entrepreneurship intent and entrepreneurial
capabilities. Regression analysis reveals that career planning, entrepreneurship capabilities and family
background (FB) in agriculture have a significant contribution as predictors of agri-entrepreneurship
intent. Categorizing the respondents based on their career planning and entrepreneurship capability
tendencies, the findings indicate that career planning and FB explain the growth of agri-entrepreneurship
intent. This article will be of great value to educationists to carry out the pedagogical transformations
and include career planning programmes and capacity-enhancing training in their curriculum for students.
It will also be relevant to agri-business entities who explore growth opportunities in agri-allied sectors.
Keywords
Agriculture, entrepreneurship intention, career planning, entrepreneurial capability, family background,
pedagogical transformation, agri-entrepreneurship students
Introduction
In recent times, entrepreneurship research has contextualized and is foraying into auxiliary areas of
entrepreneurship. Studies on building entrepreneurship theory are emphasizing the context in which
entrepreneurship has taken place (Stam, 2016). Till date, researchers have seldom studied a sector, or an
industry, as a central contextual feature in entrepreneurship research (Shane, 2007). This is a noteworthy
gap as even though individuals and firms in a sector interact with their stakeholders (customers, regulatory
Global Business Review
1–17
© 2020 IMI
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DOI: 10.1177/0972150920961266
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1
International Management Institute Kolkata, Alipore, West Bengal, India.
2
J. D. Birla Institute, Kolkata, West Bengal, India.
3
University of Calcutta, Kolkata, West Bengal, India.
4
Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, UK.
Corresponding author:
Mohua Banerjee, International Management Institute Kolkata, Alipore, West Bengal 700027, India.
E-mail: m.banerjee@imi-k.edu.in