Exploring the Influence of Proactive Personality on Entrepreneurial Intention: The Mediating Role of Entrepreneurial Attitude and Moderating Effect of Perceived Educational Support Among University Students

The aim of the present study is to examine the link between proactive personality (PP) and entrepreneurial intention (EI) and to investigate the mediating role of entrepreneurial attitude (EA) and the moderating role of perceived educational support (PES). A total of 764 university students were recruited using a stratified cluster sampling from two Chinese universities. Participants completed a battery of self-reported online questionnaires, including the proactive personality scale, entrepreneurial attitude scale, perceived educational support scale, and entrepreneurial intention scale. Descriptive and correlation analysis was conducted by SPSS 21.0. SPSS macro program PROCESS (Model 4) was used to test the mediating effect and PROCESS (Model 7) to verify the moderated mediation effect. The results showed that PP had a positive effect on EI ( B = 0.842, SE = 0.042, p < .001). EA exerted a partial mediating effect between PP and EI (the indirect effect was 0.633, which accounted for 75.27% of the total effect). Moderated mediation analysis suggested that PES moderated the indirect effect of PP on students’ EI via their EA. The present study is the first attempt to provide a single model to decipher the interlink of PP, EA, PES, and EI simultaneously. The findings could contribute to the current literature on entrepreneurship by focusing on “how” and “when” university students’ PP may enhance their EIs. More specifically, the mediating role of EA, the stronger effect of EA, and the moderating role of PES in predicting university students’ EIs were reported.