The Influence of local entrepreneurial environment and role models in motivating youths to create a new enterprise

Abstract

Governments in almost all countries provide incentives to promote entrepreneurship generally and
to establish new enterprises particularly. Creating new enterprises has also been an important goal in
regional development policies of a country. However, what makes a person establish an enterprise still
remains the most important question. This study investigates the issue among final-year students in
four different secondary schools from western Norway. The results show that local entrepreneurial
environment and role models are important factors to contribute to and/or correlated with young
people’s desire to create a new enterprise. In addition to extending the prior results, our study supports
the previous findings regarding the importance of social capital and desire for independence. It
should, however, especially be noted that leadership ambitions was an important correlate underlying
establishment of an enterprise among youths. Therefore, this study recommends including activities
that build up social capital, desire for autonomy, and leadership ambitions in education in order to
motivate youths to found an enterprise.

Keywords: New enterprise; Entrepreneurship; Entrepreneurial intentions; Role models; Local
entrepreneurial environment