Entrepreneurship Education and Entrepreneurial Intention Among Tourism and Hotel Management Students: The Mediating Role of Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy and the Moderating Role of Grit

Abstract

The present study aims to examine effective measures to enhance the effects of entrepreneurship education (EE) on university students’ entrepreneurial intention (EI) through entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) and grit. The survey used a convenient sample of 758 tourism and hotel management students in China. SPSS macro program PROCESS (Model 4) was used to test the mediating effect, and PROCESS (Model 7) was further used to verify the moderated mediation model. The results indicated that: (1) there was statistically significant and positive relationship among EE, ESE, grit, and EI among tourism and hotel management students; (2) EE significantly and positively predicted EI; (3) ESE played a partial mediating role in the link between EE and EI; (4) grit moderated the indirect effect of EE on students’ EI via their ESE. EE is a significant predictor of EI of tourism and hotel management students. Particularly, to improve the influence of EE, entrepreneurial policy makers should design incentive policies that ensure that universities provide EE across various majors. Also, educators should create a supportive and effective education environment so as to improve students’ ESE and grit.

Keywords

entrepreneurial intention entrepreneurship education entrepreneurial self-efficacy grit university students

Introduction

Entrepreneurship is of vital importance to boosting economy, promoting innovation, alleviating poverty, enhancing employment, and pushing social progress forward (Nambisan & Baron, 2013). Since entrepreneurial intention (EI) is considered to be the best predictor of entrepreneurial behavior (Bird, 1988; Krueger et al., 2000), researchers’ attention are mainly focused on the determinants of EI in the field of entrepreneurship (Antončič & Auer Antončič, 2023; Fayolle & Liñán, 2014; Yang et al., 2023). The stronger an individual’s EI is, the more likely he/she is going to have entrepreneurial behavior.

Recently, as one of the most potential entrepreneurial populations, many researchers have shifted their attention to university students’ EI (Entrialgo & Iglesias, 2016; Hou et al., 2019; Niu et al., 2022). Many researchers found that entrepreneurship education (EE) could significantly enhanced students’ EIs (Sanchez, 2013; Souitaris et al., 2007; Støren, 2014). Some other findings, however, came to the contrary conclusions with regard to the influence of EE on students’ EIs (Bae et al., 2014). For instance, in a sample of 289 students who participated in vocational training programs in Northern Portugal, Galvão et al. (2018) even reported that exposure to EE has no effect on EI. Particularly, negative effect of EE on EI of students was also observed by some studies (Joensuu et al., 2013; Y. Wang & Verzat, 2011). These dissociate findings could partly be explained by failing to distinguish different majors (Maresch et al., 2016; Polin, 2023; Roy et al., 2017). According to Maresch et al. (2016) and Polin (2023), the effects of EE on students’ EIs are significant different between business students versus science and engineering students. However, the relationship between EE and EI among tourism and hotel management students is largely under-researched in the context of developing counties in general and China in particular. Particularly, in developing countries, such as China, tourism entrepreneurship is vital to tourists’ satisfaction and to community development (Gurel et al., 2010; Mei et al., 2016). Educators and policy makers are taking their pains to cultivate tourism entrepreneurship. Thus, one aim of the present study is to examine whether EE course and programs have significant and positive effect on EIs of tourism and hotel management students.

Moreover, previous studies have investigated the mediating effect of individual-related variables such as self-efficacy (Hoang et al., 2021), entrepreneurial self-efficacy (Nowiński et al., 2017; Wu et al., 2022), entrepreneurial passion (Uddin et al., 2022), and entrepreneurial mindset (Sun et al., 2023) on the association between EE and EI of students. Among the individual-related mediating variables, the mediating role of entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) in the field of EI should be noted and further explained. Some studies have reported the partial mediating effect of ESE in the relationship between personality and EI (Gao & Huang, 2022), while some recent studies have indicated the complete mediating role in the prediction of EE on EI (Wu et al., 2022). In this sense, the second aim of the present study is to investigate whether and how ESE mediates the EE-EI link.

Also, previous studies have demonstrated the moderating role of the individual-related variables such as entrepreneurial competition experience (Wu et al., 2022), entrepreneurial attitude (Anwar et al., 2022), and prior entrepreneurial exposure (Sun et al., 2023) in EE-EI association. However, the personality trait-related moderators such as grit have been primarily under-researched in the current literature. Some studies revealed that gritty individuals are more likely to start a business and towards entrepreneurial success (Butz et al., 2018; Mooradian et al., 2016). Besides, grit drives the extent to which EE generates the self-efficacy and passion to be successful entrepreneurs (Barrientos Oradini et al., 2022). Based on this assumption, the third aim of the present study is to examine the potential moderating role of grit in EE-EI relationship.

In sum, previous studies, although numerous, have provided inconsistent findings with regard to the link between EE and EI. Based on previous findings and literature review, the present study would examine the effects of EE, ESE, and grit on EI of tourism and hotel management students. To date, no studies have examined the four variables simultaneously in a single model. Considering this gap, the present study aims to investigate the mechanism by which EE might drive EI among students of tourism and hotel management students in china. Furthermore, the present study further examine how EE-EI link is mediated by ESE and whether grit (e.g., low vs. high) might improve and/or undermine the effect of EE on EI. The findings of this study could expand our knowledge about the bridge from EE to university students’ EI.

Literature Review and Hypotheses Development

Theoretical Foundation

In the field of entrepreneurship literature, two theories, that is, Shapero’s (1982) theory of the entrepreneurial event (TEE) and Ajzen’s (1991) theory of planned behavior (TPB), dominated theoretical frameworks of any endeavor to examine the antecedents of EI. According to TEE model, three distinct factors could influence EIs: perceived desirability, perceived feasibility, and propensity to act (Krueger et al., 2000). In TPB model, EIs are combinations of the subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and attitude toward the behavior (Ajzen, 1991). Although these theories are well established in the literature, each theory is specialized in personal characteristics, sociological, psychological, or behavioral aspects. It’s worth noting that in both models, exogenous factors do not directly affect EI, they rather operate through individuals’ perceptions of desirability and feasibility. In this sense, more studies should be devoted to examining how the exogenous factors reacts with the individual factors in determining EI.

In their study, using a sample of engineering students, Lüthje and Franke (2003) combined personality traits and contextual variables (perceived barriers and support factors) to model students’ EI. According to Nabi et al. (2010), Lüthje and Franke Model (LFM) could considered as a robust framework within which scholars can investigate the antecedents of EI. Subsequently, previous studies frequently used LFM to examine the environmental and personal determinants of EI (Al-Qadasi et al., 2023; Sesen, 2013). For instance, drawing on LFM, Sesen (2013) indicated that as individual factors locus of control and entrepreneurial self-efficacy and as environmental ones social network and access to capital had significant effects on EI among 356 students in Turkish. More recently, using a sample of 487 university students in Yemen, Al-Qadasi et al. (2023) found both personality traits of the need for achievement and locus of control and situational factors of the availability of resources could positively correlate with EI. Despite the broad applicability of LFM, however, there is still largely under-researched in the developing country setting. Considered its innovative approach and broad range of factors could impact EIs, LFM is used in present study in which the role of the environmental factor (entrepreneurship education) and personality traits (entrepreneurial self-efficacy and grit) in developing EI was tested. These factors and hypothesis are discussed below.

EE and EI

As stated by Liñán et al. (2011), EE is an educational activity that refers to any pedagogical program or process of education supported and offered by universities, with the aim of cultivating and enhancing students’ entrepreneurial attitudes, knowledge, skills, perspectives, and qualities. EE plays a pivotal role in developing EI among students. According to the human capital theory (Becker, 2009), “human capital” refers to the obtainment of certain skill sets and knowledge about a particular behavior, which could be produced through education or any other way of training and learning, thus ensuring that EE is a predictor of EE. Numerous studies have shown strong correlations between students’ participation in EE and the formation of their EIs (Hassan et al., 2020; Lüthje & Franke, 2003; Z. Wang & Ortiz, 2022). According to Dehghanpour Farashah (2013), students who have completed one entrepreneurship course would enhance their likelihood of having EIs by 1.3 times. Use a quasi-experimental design, Rauch and Hulsink (2015) found that students participating in EE showed an increase in attitudes and perceived behavioral control and had higher EIs at the end of the program, and EIs could mediate the influence of EE on their subsequent entrepreneurial behaviors.

As for the business and management students’ EI, the positive effects of EE on their EIs are more significant. Having EE affords students more possibilities to succeed in entrepreneurship (Shane, 2004). According to a longitudinal survey of business students conducted by Nabi et al. (2018) in British, compared to individuals without EE, the students who undergo EE course and programs have higher entrepreneurial learning and inspiration. By establishing positive career concept and professional ideals, improving their comprehensive business qualities and skills, and developing creative thinking, EE remarkably increased students involvement in startup activities after graduation (Bignotti & le Roux, 2016; Tian et al., 2022). For instance, in a sample of 5,603 students with practical experience, that is, entrepreneurial teaching, business plan competition, and entrepreneurship practice support, Lv et al. (2021) found EE improves the ability to establish a business at present and in entrepreneurial activities in the future. More recently, in a sample of 98 management students in China, Z. Wang and Ortiz (2022) reported that both EE and technology transfer correlated statistically with students’ EIs. Similarly, using data of 184 Pakistan’s commerce students, Soomro and Shah (2022) found a significant positive effect of EE, that is, opportunity recognition and entrepreneurship knowledge acquisition on need for achievement and EI.

Based on above findings, this study would propose the first hypothesis:

H1: EE could have significant and positive effect on the tourism and hotel management students’ EIs.

The Potential Mediating Effect of ESE

When determining the intensity of university students’ EIs, ESE is also a very important explanatory variable and is found to be a robust predictor (Liñán et al., 2011). According to Chen et al. (1998), ESE is an individual’s capability or capacity to mobilize the motivation, cognitive resources and certain course of action in requisite to achieve success while performing any specific task. Thus, ESE is an important prerequisite for potential entrepreneurs to initiate entrepreneurial behavior (Baum & Locke, 2004; Liu et al., 2019; Roy et al., 2017). Based on the entrepreneurial event model, for instance, using data of 310 business students in Pakistan, Soomro et al. (2020) found that together with perceived feasibility, perceived desirability, ESE could significantly impact EI. Similarly, in a sample of 202 American business students, Barton et al. (2018) reported that ESE exerted significant influence on perceived feasibility, which in turn could predict the students’ intention to form a social enterprise.

Recently, researchers have noted the relation between EE and ESE (Guo et al., 2022; S. M. Wang et al., 2019; Wardana et al., 2020). EE provides practical skills and knowledge about entrepreneurship, enhancing students’ ability to identify business opportunities (Ali, 2013; Hassan et al., 2020). For example, in a sample of 267 business students who took the Creativity and Entrepreneurship Program, S. M. Wang et al. (2019) reported that entrepreneurship course showed positive effectiveness on all entrepreneurial competencies, such as knowledge, marking, learning, interpersonal, resource, opportunity and strategic skills, and attitudes. Another study by Wardana et al. (2020) among 376 students from Indonesia showed that education and training programs successfully influences ESE, entrepreneurial attitude, and the entrepreneurial mindset. Thus, with improved entrepreneurial skills, students’ ESE will also probably enhance.

Furthermore, the positive mediating role of ESE have also reported by previous studies in the field of EI (Chien-Chi et al., 2020; Fuller et al., 2018; J. Zhang & Huang, 2021). For example, Chien-Chi et al. (2020) indicated that ESE mediated the relationship between emotional competence and EI. Another study by J. Zhang and Huang (2021) suggested that ESE mediated the impact of the post-pandemic entrepreneurship environment on college students’ EI. In a sample of 1,593 college students in Spain, Lopez-Nunez et al. (2022) reported that self-efficacy mediated the relationship between emotional intelligence and EI.

Following the above studies, the second research hypothesis is established as follows:

H2: ESE could play a mediating effect in the link between EE and EI among the tourism and hotel management students.

The Potential Moderating Effect of Grit

As a higher order personality trait, grit refers to “perseverance and passion for long-term goals” (Duckworth et al., 2007), and is highly predictive of both success and performance. As such, researchers have increasingly been examining the effects of grit in different achievement domains, such as academic engagement and outcomes, competitive sport and business (Lam & Zhou, 2022; Tang et al., 2019). Currently, grit as a construct has not been tested in the context of entrepreneurship specifically, but the concept is starting to get some focus (Barrientos Oradini et al., 2022; Mooradian et al., 2016). For instance, in their study, Mooradian et al. (2016) with a sample of 281 Austrian entrepreneurs found that both firm-level Innovativeness and individual-level grit could predict entrepreneurial success. Using data of 500 undergraduate students in the United States, Butz et al. (2018) indicated a strong positive link between grit and students’ EIs; grit fully mediated the effect of conscientious and neuroticism on EI.

As per social cognitive theory, individuals’ characteristics could impact the process of external environment factor influencing individuals’ cognitions and behaviors (Wood & Bandura, 1989; Y. Zhang et al., 2023). Furthermore, prior research has demonstrated that grit strengthens the effects of contextual factors on individuals’ psychological outcomes (Barrientos Oradini et al., 2022; Xu et al., 2022). According to a study conducted by Yang et al. (2022) among 1,224 freshmen, grit could play a mediating and moderating role in the link between interpersonal stress and psychological security. Thus, it’s possible to suppose that high levels of grit may strengthen the positive effect of EE on ESE. Gritty individuals, that is, being self-controlled, working hard with practice and diligence, and maintaining a positive attitude, may be successful when confronting failure and adversity, showing high levels of ESE. More recently, using a sample of 1,761 workers in Chile, Barrientos Oradini et al. (2022) reported that grit, especially the passion component, played a moderating role between entrepreneurial orientation and the probability of starting a business. Generally, if students possess higher levels of ESE, they will be more likely to devote their efforts and energies for the improvement of entrepreneurial performance, which positively influence their EIs. Thus, it’s reasonable to believe that the possibility of students’ EI being influenced by EE is much bigger for those students who report high levels of grit than those who report lower levels of grit. That is to say, the EE-EI link is expected to be further strengthened when students rate highly on grit. Basing on the aforesaid, this study proposes the third research hypothesis:

H3: Grit would moderate the indirect effect of EE on the tourism and hotel management students’ EI via their ESE.

Taken together the above arguments, we would propose a moderated mediation model to examine the factors influencing students’ EIs, which runs as follow in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

The hypothetical model. EE, entrepreneurship education; ESE, entrepreneurial self-efficacy; EI, entrepreneurial intention.

Methods

Participants

The Ethics Committee of the Zhoukou Normal University approved the present study. A convenient sampling questionnaire survey was conducted at five universities from China, one in Henan Province, and the others in Anhui Province between April 6 and May 20, 2022. Both province have rich tourism resources, natural and human landscape, such as Mount Huang in Anhui Province and Shaolin Temple in Henan Province. Five class counselors were recruited for the survey, and the necessary training and guidance was made to them. Before the formal survey, the scientific purpose of the study, the voluntariness of their participation, and the anonymity of their responses were guaranteed to the respondents. All respondents signed the written informed consent. During the class breaks, the online questionnaire was distributed through Wechat. Since the questionnaires cannot be submitted until all items had been answered, there were no incomplete questionnaires. Finally, a total of 758 questionnaires were collected. For the gender, the majority of respondents were females 596 (78.63%), whereas 162 (21.37%) were male. Of participants, 667 were freshmen (87.99%), 52 are sophomores (6.86%), 23 were juniors (3.03%), and 16 were seniors (2.11%). As regard to parents’ entrepreneurial experience, 476 participants’ parents had entrepreneurial experience (62.80%) and 282 participants’ parents hadn’t entrepreneurial experience (37.20%).

Measures

To assess the effects of EE, ESE, and grit on EI of tourism and hotel management students, the present study designed a quantitative cross-sectional questionnaire survey. The questionnaire consisted of two parts: the first part was sociodemographic characteristics of participants, and the second part included four scales to measure students’ EE, ESE, grit, and EI. All items in four scales were scored on a 5-point Likert, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

More specifically, to measure students’ EE, Liñán and Chen (2009) 5-item EE scale was adopted in the present study. This scale was a cross-cultural application measure, reporting in satisfactory psychometric properties previous studies (Hassan et al., 2020). High scores suggest high levels of EE. A sample item includes, “Knowledge about the entrepreneurial environment.” Further, Liñán and Chen (2009) 6-item measure was used to assess ESE. This instrument requires respondents answer the extent to which they believe they can do about the things, such as “control the creation process” and “keep a business functional.” High scores suggest high levels of EE. A sample item is “I am prepared to start a viable business.” Then, to measured grit, Duckworth and Quinn (2009) 8-item Grit Scale was used. This scale consists of two dimensions: consistency of interest and perseverance of effort. Higher scores indicate higher grit. A sample item is “I am diligent.” Finally, EI was measured with Liñán and Chen (2009) 6-item scale. Respondents indicate how interested they are in creating a firm and becoming an entrepreneur as their professional goals. A sample item is “I am determined to create a firm in the future.”

Based on previous studies, the participants’ gender and parents’ entrepreneurial experience were taken as control variables (Wilson et al., 2007).

Data Analysis

Before formal analysis, since all data in the present study were collected from single source, the problem of common method variance was addressed by Harman’s single factor test. Then, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was applied to examine reliability and validity. The descriptive and correlation analysis was conducted by SPSS 21.0. To test the mediating effect, Hayes (2017) SPSS macro program PROCESS (Model 4) was used, and PROCESS (Model 7) was further used to verify the moderated mediation model. Based on Bootstrap method of deviation correction percentile, 5,000 Bootstrap samples were extracted to obtain 95% confidence interval (CI). If the 95% CI excluded 0, the effect was statistically significant.

Results

Common Method Variance Test

Harman’s single factor test was performed to check for the potential common method variance. A total of eight factors with an eigenvalue over one were obtained by unrotated principal component factor analysis for all variables. The first emerging unrotated factor accounted for 34.712% of the overall, lower than the standard value of 40% (Podsakoff et al., 2003). The obtained data could be further analyzed.

Measurement Model

The measuring model was evaluated for the reliability and validity of the main variables. The four standard criteria, that is, individual item reliability, construct reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity were employed (Hair et al., 2017).

First, for confirmation of the individual item reliability, the item factor loadings (FL) of the constructs were observed. On one hand, majority of FL revealed greater than 0.7, with the exception of nine items with FL between 0.507 and 0.683, lower than the 0.7 threshold. According to Ramayah et al. (2018), items with lower FL (0.5 or 0.6) are still acceptable as long as the summation of FL contributes to average variance extracted values (AVE) scores of greater than 0.5. On the other hand, the Cronbach’s α of the EE, ESE, EI, and grit scales was .926, .879, .897, and .739 respectively (all greater than .7), suggesting satisfactory reliability (Nunnally, 1978).

Second, for confirmation of the construct reliability, the composite reliability (CR) was used. As show in Table 1, the CRs for all of the constructs ranged from 0.723 to 0.927, exceeding the minimum threshold of 0.7. Third, to assess the convergent validity, the AVE was used. The AVE indicators for all constructs were higher than the 0.5 thresholds, with the exception of one sub-scale of grit (0.396), that is, consistency of interest. According to Fornell and Larcker (1981), even though the value of AVE was less than 0.5, under the conditions of CR exceeding the threshold, the AVE was still acceptable. Table 1 presents the values of the factor loadings, CRs, AVEs, and Cronbach’s α for all of the latent variables.

Table 1.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis of Measurement Model.

Scale	Items	FL	CR	AVE	Alpha (α)
Entrepreneurship education	EE1	0.779	0.927	0.717	.926
	EE2	0.860
	EE3	0.897
	EE4	0.832
	EE5	0.861
Entrepreneurship self-efficacy	ESE1	0.550	0.882	0.560	.879
	ESE2	0.781
	ESE3	0.815
	ESE4	0.860
	ESE5	0.704
	ESE6	0.741
Entrepreneurship intention	EI1	0.627	0.899	0.601	.897
	EI2	0.764
	EI3	0.683
	EI4	0.880
	EI4	0.836
	EI6	0.830
Grit: consistency of interest	Grit1	0.580	0.723	0.396	.739
	Grit2	0.601
	Grit3	0.660
	Grit4	0.670
Grit: perseverance of effort	Grit5	0.507	0.794	0.505
	Grit6	0.539
	Grit7	0.864
	Grit8	0.852

Note. FL = standardized factor loading; CR = composite reliability; AVE = average variance extracted.

Finally, according to the suggestion of Gilal et al. (2018), the present study conducted a CFA to test the discriminant validity. Following the procedure, a four-construct model was compared with a three-construct, two-construct, and one-construct model. The results were presented in Table 2. The findings revealed that the four-construct model (i.e., entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, grit, and entrepreneurial intention) showed a better model fit than any other three-construct, two-construct, and one-construct model. The model fit indices of the four-construct model were as follows: CMIN/DF = 5.713, CFI = 0.882, TLI = 0.869, RMSEA = 0.079, SRMR = 0.066. All the fit indices were within acceptable limit (Schumacker & Lomax, 2016), confirming the discriminant validity of the constructs.

Table 2.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis.

Model	χ²	df	χ²/df	CFI	TLI	RMSEA	SRMR
Four-factor model: EE, EI, ESE, Grit	1,536.878	269	5.713	0.882	0.869	0.079	0.066
Three-factor model: EE + EI, ESE, Grit	3,600.743	272	13.238	0.691	0.659	0.127	0.114
Two-factor model: EE + EI + ESE, Grit	4,174.905	274	15.237	0.638	0.603	0.137	0.101
One-factor model: EE + EI + ESE + Grit	5,043.35	275	18.339	0.557	0.517	0.151	0.117

Note. n = 758. EE = entrepreneurship education; ESE = entrepreneurial self-efficacy; EI = entrepreneurial intention; CMIN/DF = minimum discrepancy per degree of freedom; CFI = comparative fit index; TLI = Tucker-Lewis index; RMSEA = root mean square error of approximation; SRMR = standardized root mean squared residual.

Descriptive Statistics and Correlation Analysis

The results of descriptive statistics and correlation analysis were shown in Table 3. The results of correlation analysis suggested that EE was positively correlated with EI (r = .429, p < .001), positively correlated with ESE (r = .588, p < .001), and positively correlated with grit (r = .194, p < .001). ESE and EI were positively correlated (r = .627, p < .001). Grit was positively correlated with EI (r = .236, p < .001) and ESE (r = .329, p < .001). The absolute values of correlation coefficients between any two variables were less than .7, suggesting no collinearity problem.

Table 3.

Descriptive Statistics and Correlation Analysis.

Variable	M	SD	EE	GRIT	ESE	EI
EE	3.589	0.661	1
GRIT	3.240	0.508	0.194*	1
ESE	3.379	0.596	0.588*	0.329*	1
EI	3.170	0.692	0.429*	0.236*	0.627*	1

Note. n = 758. M = mean; SD = standard deviation; EE = entrepreneurship education; ESE = entrepreneurial self-efficacy; EI = entrepreneurial intention.

p < .001.

Test of Mediation

According to Hayes (2017), the mediating effect of ESE was examined using Model 4 in SPSS. Based on previous studies, gender and parents’ entrepreneurial experience were taken as control variables (Wilson et al., 2007). The results were shown in Table 4. In Model 1, in the absence of ESE, EE significantly and positively predicted EI (β = .450, SE = 0.034, p < .001). In Model 2, in the absence of EI, EE significantly and positively predicted ESE (β = .530, SE = 0.027, p < .001). When added ESE as a mediating variable in Model 3, ESE significantly and positively predicted EI (β = .664, SE = 0.041, p < .001); the predictive effect of EE on EI was still significant (β = .098, SE = 0.037, p < .001). That is to say, ESE partially mediated the effect of EE on EI.

Table 4.

The Mediation of ESE.

Variable	Model 1			Model 2			Model 3
	EI			ESE			EI
	β	SE	95% CI	β	SE	95% CI	β	SE	95% CI
Gender	.235***	0.055	[0.122, 0.348]	.105*	0.042	[0.015, 0.187]	.168***	0.048	[0.073, 0.262]
PEE	.171***	0.046	[0.080, 0.260]	.162***	0.036	[0.090, 0.232]	.067	0.041	[-0.012, 0.146]
EE	.449***	0.034	[0.372, 0.523]	.523***	0.026	[0.445, 0.597]	.114**	0.037	[0.026, 0.197]
ESE							.639***	0.041	[0.533, 0.740]
R ²	0.219			0.368			0.410
F	70.345***			146.478***			131.001***

Note. n = 758. β = unstandardized coefficients; SE = standard error; CI = confidence interval; PEE = parents’ entrepreneurial experience; EE = entrepreneurship education; ESE = entrepreneurial self-efficacy; EI = entrepreneurial intention.

p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Furthermore, this study investigated the mediating effect of ESE by using bias-corrected nonparametric percentile bootstrapping. More specifically, the indirect effect value was 0.352 with 95% CI [0.272, 0.437], indicating the mediating effect of ESE. The direct effect value was 0.098, with 95% CI [0.026, 0.170], without 0, indicating the partial mediating effect of ESE. The mediating effect accounted for 78.22% of the total effect.

Testing for Moderated Mediation

PROCESS model 7 was applied to examine the moderating role of grit. Gender and parents’ entrepreneurial experience were taken as control variables. The results were shown in Table 5.

Table 5.

Testing the Moderated Mediation Model.

Predictor	Effect	SE	95% CI	Significance
M: Entrepreneurial self-efficacy
X: Entrepreneurship education	0.481	0.026	[0.404, 0.558]	p < .001
W: Grit	0.236	0.034	[0.149, 0.322]	P < .001
Interaction: X × W	0.167	0.042	[0.014, 0.322]	P < .001

Note. n = 758. β = unstandardized coefficients; SE = standard error; CI = confidence interval.

As shown in Table 5, a significant positive predictive effect of EE on ESE (β = 0.481, SE = 0.026, p < .001) was observed. The interaction of EE with grit had a significant predictive effect on ESE (β = 0.167, SE = 0.042, p < .001), indicating that grit plays a moderating role in the EE-ESE link. Figure 2 shows the simple slopes for different levels of grit.

Figure 2.

The moderated effect of grit in the entrepreneurship education-entrepreneurial self-efficacy link.

Furthermore, the empirical results in Table 6 revealed that grit moderated the indirect effect of EE on university students’ EI via their ESE. More specifically, the mediation influence of ESE in the link between EE and university students’ EI tends to be more significant and stronger for university students who demonstrated a higher level of grit (i.e., conditional mediation effect = 0.362, 95% CI = [0.263, 0.466]) than those who demonstrated a lower level of grit (i.e., conditional mediation effect = 0.253, 95% CI = [0.175, 0.335]), and the difference is also significant (difference = 0.108, 95% CI = [0.009, 0.212]). Thus, Hypothesis 3 was verified.

Table 6.

Regression Results for Moderated Mediating Effects.

Mediator	Grit	Effect	SE	95% CI	Significance
M: Entrepreneurial self-efficacy	−1 SD	0.253	0.041	[0.175, 0.335]	p < .001
	Equal to mean	0.308	0.040	[0.235, 0.390]	P <.001
	+1 SD	0.362	0.053	[0.263, 0.466]	P <.001
	Difference	0.108	0.052	[0.009, 0.212]	P <.050

Note. n = 758. Values for quantitative moderators are the plus/minus 1 SD from mean.

Discussion

Main Findings

Based on previous literature, this study aimed to examine the effects of EE, ESE and grit on EI among tourism and hotel management students. According to the results, the proposed hypotheses were verified as followed.

First, the results confirmed a significantly positive link between EE and EI among tourism and hotel management students, supporting hypotheses H1. This finding was similar to the studies of Bignotti and le Roux (2016), Nabi et al. (2018), Soomro and Shah (2022), and Tian et al. (2022) in different cultures among business and management students. Although the significant effect of EE on EI has reported by many previous studies, some even stated no significant effect (Galvão et al., 2018). However, national development, university type, study major, and the knowledge structure of EE could all be potential factors influencing the effects of EE on EI (Maresch et al., 2016; Nájera-Sánchez et al., 2023; Polin, 2023). In this sense, as for the tourism and hotel management students, at least, the effect of EE on their EIs was not insignificant. According to the human capital theory (Becker, 2009), “human capital” could be produced through education and training and learning, thus ensuring that EE could significant impact EE. Compared with other majors, the tourism and hotel management students’ ordinal course have equipped them with the professional knowledge and skills and effective learning (S. M. Wang et al., 2019), the positive effect of EE on their EIs are more stronger.

Recently, the predominant literature on entrepreneurship mainly has been focusing on developed countries under the culture of individualism, realizing the neo-liberal economic paradigm (Soltwisch et al., 2023; Soomro & Shah, 2022). As yet for developing countries in relation to the cultural differences, such as China, the predicted effects of EE courses on tourism and hotel management students’ entrepreneurship are indispensable. EE could foster students to generate business ideas and “being entrepreneurial” as a future career option, improving their capabilities to recognize opportunities in the changing business market, enhancing the entrepreneurial mindset, and enrich their business knowledge and skills that are required for developing and managing an enterprise (Hou et al., 2019; Niu et al., 2022; Nowiński et al., 2017; Sun et al., 2023). Thus, the high focused EI were further consolidated and better connected through EE courses.

Second, ESE played a partial mediating role in the prediction of EE on EI, supporting hypotheses H2. That is, more intensive EE of the tourism and hotel management students not only directly can impact their EIs, but also indirectly can effect their EIs through their high sense of ESE. The mediating effect of ESE accounted for 78.22% of the total effect, meaning that EE affects EI mainly through ESE. As per LFM, although individual factors and environmental ones both can have significant impacts on EIs of students, the strengths are different. Prior studies have shown that compared with environmental factors (such as access to capital, business information and university education), the impact of personality traits (such as locus of control, need for achievement, and self-efficacy) on EIs is stronger (Sesen, 2013; Wu et al., 2022). The finding of the present study again verified the stronger effect of ESE on EI. That is, tourism and hotel management students’ EIs are more likely to be strengthened through ESE.

Although the mediating role of ESE in the field of EI was reported by previous studies, the nature of mediating role was still controversial among present researchers. For instance, some previous researchers found that ESE was a complete mediator between EE and EI (Udayanan, 2019; Wu et al., 2022). However, the present study reported a partial mediating in the EE-EI link. The finding corroborates those of previous studies which drew similar conclusions (Gao & Huang, 2022). The different mediating effects of ESE on the link between EE and EI maybe lie in the different measure of ESE and EI, or attribute to the disparate sampling populations, which needs further examined in the future studies among more populations.

Third, the present study further suggested that grit is a moderating variable. More specifically, grit could moderate the first half of the mediating effect of ESE, that is, grit could moderate the indirect effect of EE on EI via their ESE, supporting hypothesis H3. That is, the linkage between EE and ESE would be stronger for individuals with gritty character. Moreover, by investigating the moderation of grit, the present study revealed that it improves the strength between EE and tourism and hotel management students’ ESE towards generating EI. This aligns the studies of Mooradian et al. (2016) and Butz et al. (2018) who identified grit a meaningful personality variable in examining the determinants of EIs. The moderating role of grit suggests that EE, that teaches grit, may strengthen students’ ESE. The more grittier students have, the stronger the predictive effect of EE on their ESE is.

This moderated mediation effect of grit on the EE-EI link could be explained by the components of grit. On the one hand, one component of grit is passion, which refers to the consistency of interests. Having higher levels of Grit-Passion allow students to have a long focused on what one sets out to achieve and carry out specific tasks more effectively, which is positively associated with high levels of ESE and in turn more likely to engage in entrepreneurial behavior (Alhadabi & Karpinski, 2020; Barrientos Oradini et al., 2022). On the other hand, grit refers to the perseverance of effort. Grit-Perseverance is particularly beneficial in failing situations. According to Lucas et al. (2015), grittier individuals could increase their effort in a losing situation compared to less gritty individuals, and are more optimistic when failing, and continue to put forth more effort. Similarly, Oosterbeek et al. (2010) reported that business education allowed students to be more realistic about what was needed to start a business, essentially suggesting that endurance (i.e., grit) development should be a cornerstone of the curriculum. In the process of starting a business, gritty individuals tend to persevere in the pursuit of their goals compared to other people when confronting the barriers, obstacles and failures. It is, precisely, the ability to keep focusing on the specific objectives and maintain the perseverance of effort even in situation that makes the difference when developing a new enterprise. Considered the fierce competitive environment, it is reasonable to suppose that grittier students have higher level of ESE and will be more successful in subsequent entrepreneurial activities.

Theoretical Contributions

Based on prior studies and literature review, the present study explored the effects of EE, ESE, and Grit on EI in a single model, and the finding could make some theoretical contributions to EI literature. First, in terms of the effect of EE on students’ EI, prior studies have revealed that business students have higher possibility of becoming entrepreneurs that non-business students in western developed countries, the present study further assessed the significant and positive effect of EE on EI of tourism and hotel management students in China, underlining the importance of EE in producing students’ EIs. Second, regarding to the “how” aspect of in the EE-EI link, this study showed that ESE played a partial mediating role between EE and EI, suggesting that EE could serve as significant predictor in enhancing EI both separately and jointly with ESE. Third, some prior studies have investigated the moderating role of entrepreneurial competition experience (Wu et al., 2022), entrepreneurial attitude (Anwar et al., 2022), and prior entrepreneurial exposure (Sun et al., 2023) in the EE-EI link. Consisting with those findings, this study further investigated the moderating role of grit in the relationship between EE and EI. As such, our study made an important contribution in that it substantiated the notion that EE, ESE, and grit were all meaningful variable in predicting students’ EI.

Practical Contributions

The findings of present study could offer important practical information to enhance the students’ EI. First, in consideration of the effect of EE on EI, entrepreneurial policy makers should design incentive policies that ensure that universities provide EE across various majors and disciplines. Second, during the course of education, educators should create a supportive and effective education environment so as to improve students’ ESE. The targeted educational measures, such as creating better entrepreneurial practice platforms, business plan practice, and on-the-job training, should be taken. Third, educators and mentors should seek to design interventions to foster students’ grit. For instance, educators can encourage individuals not only to work with intensity, but also to build stamina in pursuit of long-term goals (Duckworth et al., 2007). Also, instructors should share real life examples who had to be gritty to succeed, such as Steve Jobs, which could give students the message that they can be successful despite hardship.

Limitations

This study was not without limitations. First, the study used cross-sectional questionnaire study to analyze EI targeting only the tourism and hotel management students from five universities of two provinces in China, so a general conclusion cannot be arrived. Second, this study used ESE and grit to explore the moderated mediation model of EE on EI, however, as prior have reported there are still some other mediating variables, such as entrepreneurial competency (Hamzah & Othman, 2023), entrepreneurial passion (Uddin et al., 2022), and entrepreneurial mindset (Sun et al., 2023). Third, the present study has taken the students only from the tourism and hotel management background; hence whether the moderated mediation model within which grit as a moderating role and ESE as mediating role in the EE-EI link would be applicable to students from other majors is still unanswered, thereby opening the possibility for performing another study targeting students from other majors viz. business, humanities, science, engineering, etc.

Conclusion

Overall, in a sample of 758 tourism and hotel management students in China, the present study proposed a moderated mediation model to examine the relationship between EE and EI. The findings verified that there was a significant positive relation between EE and EI, and ESE played a mediating role in the link between EE and EI. This study could make a unique contribution, since we proposed grit as a moderating variables through which EE could enhance its effects on individual’s ESE. High levels of grit could result in high levels of ESE, which in turn leads to high levels of EI. In this vein, grit should become an essential component of EE. Thus, entrepreneurial policy makers and EE educators could potentially use the finding of study as a practical guide to develop EIs among tourism and hotel management students. Since the cross-sectional nature of this study, to get a more sound conclusion, further studies should increase representative samples from other countries. Considering the grit-related role was still little discussed in the field of EI, future research could incorporate other potential mediating variables into the EI model to examine the potential moderated effect of grit among different group of students.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all instructors and students that have participated in the study.

Authors Contribution

Conceptualization: Hong-xin Zhang; Data curation: Hong-xin Zhang; Formal analysis: Hong-xin Zhang; Investigation: Hong-xin Zhang; Methodology: Hong-xin Zhang; Project administration: Hong-xin Zhang; Resources: Hong-xin Zhang; Software: Hong-xin Zhang; Validation: Hong-xin Zhang; Writing-original draft: Hong-xin Zhang; Writing-review & editing: Hong-xin Zhang.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Hong-xin Zhang

Data Availability Statement

The datasets used during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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