Pengaruh Jaringan Terhadap Sikap, Keyakinan dan Kecenderungan Keusahawanan di Kalangan Pelajar Institusi Pengajian Tinggi (IPT) Malaysia : Kajian Kes di UUM dan UiTM Perlis

The network construct has been used extensively in entrepreneurship studies. However, while the increasing use of the construct has enhanced our understanding of the phenomenon, its popularity has sometimes led to misconception and inconsistency research findings. The aims of this research were to determine the relationships between entrepreneurial network with entrepreneurial attitude, conviction and intention among student in Higher Learning Institution in Malaysia. The research model was adopted from Economic-Psychology Model, which was develop by previous researchers to study the determinants of enterpreneurial intentions. This research was conducted at Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM), Kedah and Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) Perlis. The resposdents of the research comprised a sample of 205 final year students from Bachelor of Business Administration program who are currently enrolled entrepreneurship subject as a partial fulfillment for graduation. The questionnaire consists five sections, namely demographic factor, entrepreneurial conviction, intention, networks and attitude orientation. The data were analyzed using Cross-Tabulation, Chi-Square Test and Spearman Correlation techniques. From the analysis, informal entrepreneurial network such as family and friendship significant relationships with students' entrepreneurial attitude, conviction and intention. Meanwhile, demographic factors such as gender, study place and interest in entrepreneurship subject showed significant relationships with entrepreneurial network. On the other hand, entrepreneurial attitude was found out not to be significantly associated with gender, place of study, interest in entrepreneurship subject, experience in entrepreneurship co-curiculum and stream of study in secondary school. However, the above demographic factors had significant association with entrepreneurial conviction and intention. Also, the result of the study suggests that interest in entrepreneurship subject had significant relationship with entrepreneurial intention. The study also yields evidence to suggest that entrepreneurial attitude was insignificantly associated with entrepreneurial intention. Thus, these revelations pose a challenge for Higher Learning Institutions to breed, encourage and foster entrepreneurial intention in their entrepreneur development programs. Finally, some suggestions and direction for future researches have been forwarded to facilitate the entrepreneur development programs in Higher Learning Institutions.