The impact of media on entrepreneurial intentions in the context of economic development

The impact of media on entrepreneurial intentions in the context of

economic development

Word count: 12976 words

Rijksuniversiteit Groningen - Faculty of Economics and Business MSc International Business and Management

Abstract

This paper examines whether media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship leads to a higher rate of entrepreneurial intentions in the context of economic development. It was postulated that media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship drives stronger

entrepreneurial intentions in countries with either a relatively low level or a relatively high level of economic development of a country. In contrast, in middle income countries, this effect was expected to be less strong, leading to a U-shaped model of the impact of media on entrepreneurial intentions in the context of economic development. The paper compares the results of the surveys conducted in three countries with different economic development, namely Rwanda, a factor-driven stage economy, Romania, an efficiency-driven stage

economy and the Netherlands, an innovation-driven stage economy. In line with Acs (2006), this paper states that the differences in economic development determine the level of

entrepreneurial intentions and the two hypotheses, "Media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship has a positive influence on entrepreneurial intentions" and "Media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship has a U-shaped influence on entrepreneurial intentions the higher the economic development of a country" were examined. This study revealed that media coverage on the benefits of entrepreneurship has a positive impact on entrepreneurial intentions in each of the three different levels of a country’s economic development. The quantitative analysis conducted in this paper showed that this impact differed depending on the level of economic development of each country. Yet, unlike expected, the influence of the article did not have a U-shaped distribution on entrepreneurial intentions but was found to have a declining, linear distribution the higher the level of economic development.

Introduction

Whether it is poverty, diseases, social tensions or even civil war, the level of a country's economic development determines the living condition of its population. The importance of entrepreneurship for a country's economy is undeniable since it creates new businesses, which create new jobs, intensify competition and increase innovation, thereby leading to economic development (Amoros and Bosma, 2013). Thus, entrepreneurship is of the utmost importance for policymakers and government institutions across the world that aim to address the

question how to increase entrepreneurial intentions and activities. To approach this challenge, among other instruments, media has been used to increase entrepreneurship. The influence of mass media on values and social behavior has a strong relevance in scientific fields of

research. Similarly, there is a myriad of academic literature examining how values and culture affect entrepreneurship. However, as stated by Hyndle and Kliver (2007), the direct effect of media on entrepreneurship is sadly mostly neglected in academic research. In fact, the broad body of entrepreneurship literature only contains a few disjointed concepts, mostly lacking empirical data, on how media influences entrepreneurship. Thus, examining the influence of media on entrepreneurship is meaningful and necessary in order to show the importance of media as a tool to increase entrepreneurial intentions, which are the basis for entrepreneurial activity. According to Hang and Van Weezel (2005), who aimed to address this research gap, media plays an essential role in influencing entrepreneurship by transmitting values and images ascribed to entrepreneurship, by providing a carrier promoting entrepreneurial practices and by encouraging entrepreneurial spirit in the society. This gap in

entrepreneurship literature will be further addressed in this paper.

Moreover, it is widely known that the level of entrepreneurship varies significantly across countries, depending on the level of economic development (Wennekers et al., 2005). As stated by Porter et al. (2002), economic development is referred to as increasingly

Given these two aspects, namely the influence of media on entrepreneurship and the influence of economic development on entrepreneurship, the question arises as whether a higher level of media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship results in an increase of entrepreneurial intentions and if so, if media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship has a U-shaped influence on entrepreneurial intentions the higher the economic development of a country. This paper is organized as follows. First, relevant literature is discussed and in the second section, a conceptual framework is developed and the hypotheses are postulated. The third section explains the research methodology and the control variables. In the subsequent section, the results will be presented, followed by the discussion and the conclusion.

1 Theoretical background

In order to better understand this study, the relevant literature for this study is presented in this section. First, definitions and the concept of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial intentions, media and economic development will be provided. Second, the conceptual model for this paper is explained and the two hypotheses of this study are derived.

1.1 Entrepreneurship

Since not all opportunities are entrepreneurial opportunities, Shane and Venkataraman (2000) add the requirement of discovering new means-ends relationships instead of just optimizing within existing means-ends framework to this definition. Moreover, the authors explain the existence of entrepreneurship by suggesting that entrepreneurship requires that people hold different beliefs about the value of resources and that opportunities are objective phenomena which are not known to all parties at all times, since information is imperfectly distributed. More broadly, Hang and Van Weezel (2005) argue that entrepreneurship is a multi-faced phenomenon, which includes the discovery of opportunities, the establishment of new firms and the carrying out of new strategic initiatives within existing business, also referred to as corporate entrepreneurship. In contrast, Davidsson (2004) defines entrepreneurship as the competitive behaviors that drive the market process.

As can be seen, a consensual definition of entrepreneurship has not yet been established but there is a widely shared consensus that entrepreneurship is a multi-faced phenomenon, which comprehends from the discovery of opportunities to the establishment of new firms and to carrying out new strategic initiatives within existing companies (Hang and Van Weezel, 2005). This multi-faced concept of entrepreneurship will be applied in this paper.

cultural and institutional characteristics of a country (Reynolds et al., 2002). I turn now to elucidate the term entrepreneurial intentions.

1.1.2 Entrepreneurial intentions

Although a profound definition of entrepreneurship has been given, it is essential for this paper to define entrepreneurial intentions, which are the first step towards entrepreneurial activity. There is a substantial body of literature that demonstrates the importance of intentions when it comes to the decision to start a new business. According to Moriano et al. (2012), intentions can be described as a representation of the direction of future actions and a strong predictor of behavior. Krueger and Carsrud (1993) define entrepreneurial intention as the conscious state of mind that precedes action and directs attention towards goals such as establishing a company. Similarly, Gartner et al. (1994) argue that intentions to start a new business are the first step in the process of venture creation.

As elucidated by Linan and Chen (2006), entrepreneurship can be viewed as a process that occurs over time and entrepreneurial intentions being the first step in the process of venture creation. Linan (2004) points out that intention becomes a fundamental element towards explaining behavior and indicates the effort a person will make to carry out entrepreneurial behavior. Both internal and external factors have an effect on intentions. According to Lee and Wong (2004), the intentions to carry out a behavior are influenced by various internal factors, such as values, needs, wants, habits or beliefs. Krueger (1993) adds to this theory that exogenous factors such as time constraints, social pressure and task difficulty also impact entrepreneurial intentions.

indicated, namely ‘Personal Attraction’ (which can be also referred to as ‘Attitude towards the behavior’), ‘Perceived Social Norms’ and ‘Perceived Behavioral Control’.

Personal Attraction can be defined as the degree to which the individual holds a positive or a negative personal valuation, both affective and evaluative, about being an entrepreneur (Ajzen, 2002). In the words of Linan and Chen (2006), Personal Attraction thus includes sentiments such as “I like it, it makes me feel good, it is pleasant” and evaluations, such as “it is more profitable” or “it has more advantages”. Personal Attraction is also influenced by experience and education, since knowledge provides a greater awareness about the existence of entrepreneurship as professional career option and may also increase the perceived

potential future performance. The second motivational factor, Perceived Social Norms, refers to the perceived social pressure to carry out (or not to carry out) that entrepreneurial behavior. This factor captures the perception of the respondent of what people who are important in his life think about performing the behavior (Ajzen, 2001). The third factor, Perceived Behavioral Control measures the perception of the easiness or difficulty in the fulfillment of becoming an entrepreneur and it reflects the perception that the behavior is personally controllable (Ajzen, 2002). It can be seen as the sense of capacity of fulfilling firm creation behaviors (Linan and Chen, 2006). This concept of the three motivational factors, professional attraction (‘Personal Attraction’), social valuation (‘Perceived Social Norms’) and entrepreneurial capacity

(‘Perceived Behavioral Control’), is included in the Entrepreneurial Intention Questionnaire used by Linan and Chen (2006). Since the three motivational factors depend on the social status as well as the educational and cultural background of a person and are likely to differ from country to country, the questionnaire used for this work includes these motivational factors in order to examine the influence of economic development on entrepreneurial intentions.

1.2 Media

activity. The question arises as how this phenomenon, namely how media influences entrepreneurship, can be described. According to Levie et al. (2011), research on the influence of media began in the late 1930ies, mainly with the cognitive theory of mass

communication. The cognitive theory of mass communication developed by Lasswell (1948), argues that mass communication is capable of shaping individual’s views, thereby

manipulating and controlling the society through propaganda. As reported by Levie et al. (2011), this theory was then followed by the ‘reinforcement theory’ in the mid-twentieth century, which argues that media can only reinforce existing views. In the early 1970ies, a third perspective that views media as having an agenda setting function, which means that media can tell us ‘what to think about’ was established.

Similarly, Hindle and Klyver (2007) present the evolution of academic theories on the influence of mass media. The authors elaborate the phenomenon how media influences the public in general by indicating the three main theories covered by Levie et al. (2011). The first theory, mainly postulated by Lasswell (1948), argues that media is a very powerful social, political and cultural institution that is not only capable of shaping values and attitudes but also of changing them. Thus, media can directly influence the behavior and thinking of audiences. The second model established by Klapper (1960), suggests that media acts as a reinforcement. In contrast to the 'change theory', the reinforcement perspective indicates that audiences are active and not just passive, unquestioning recipients of what is served up to them. In this theory, media is regarded as having little power to challenge beliefs, values and ideas already held by recipients. Instead, media acts in ways that reinforce values, opinions and ideas held by audiences. As stated by Klapper, other 'socializing agencies' such as family, religion, political institutions, educational institutions or legal institutions are much more potent when it comes to changing values and opinions of individuals. More precisely, this theory argues that a person either rejects information delivered by the media, if this

what to think about. As a result, media can focus the attention of the public in certain directions by providing information from specific points of view and perspectives.

These theories of the influence of media on the public can also serve as explanation for the phenomenon of how media influences entrepreneurship. For instance, examining the influence of media on entrepreneurship by using the Klapper’s reinforcement perspective (1960) could reinforce people to continue their entrepreneurial activities by highlighting the benefits of successful entrepreneurs. By opting for the Agenda Setting Function Theory, mass media could influence people to consider entrepreneurship as a career option or to develop certain skills needed for entrepreneurial activity (Levie et al., 2011). As can be seen, the different explanations of the theories of the influence of media will lead to dissimilar

hypothesis and results. As will be further elaborated in the methodology section, the empirical component of this research is designed to be open and thus this research will not select one and exclude the others of the above-mentioned theories. Instead, this paper aims to examine which of these theories is most applicable for explaining how media influences

entrepreneurship.

This phenomenon, namely the influence of media on entrepreneurship, has been examined by Levie et al. (2011) who found that media is one of a range of influences that can have an impact on founders, but it is recognized only by a few people as a major influence. In fact, only 12 % of new founders perceive media as a major influence on their start-up decision and only 4% of established founders indicate that media has a major influence on their

entrepreneurial activities. The authors discovered that media mostly affected people’s

decision to start a business regarding social norms, such as having a positive attitude towards entrepreneurship, regarding certain actions, such as researching business ideas and regarding feasibility, such as skills awareness. In contrast, Hang and Van Weezel (2005) illustrate the importance of media as an influencer of entrepreneurial activity by stating that, since media acts as a carrier for delivering information for the mass people, media products have a profound impact on public perceptions on entrepreneurship. This is because of the fact that the image of entrepreneurship that media presents to the public may influence people's attitude and affects their behavior. As the authors point out, the positive images of

Thus, I postulate the following hypothesis:

H1: Media coverage of benefits of entrepreneurship has a positive influence on entrepreneurial intentions.

1.3 Economic development

Since there are significant differences in entrepreneurial activity across different countries, the question arises as whether or not economic development has a major influence on this

entrepreneurial activity. As stated by Porter et al. (2002), economic development is referred to as increasingly sophisticated ways of producing and competing, suggesting an evolution from a resource-based to a knowledge-based economy. Economic development can be classified into three categories. First, at the lowest level of development, the factor-driven stage, competitiveness is based upon low factor costs, cost efficiencies, the production of commodities as well as low value-added products and the presence of natural resources. Countries compete on the basis of their factor endowments. Economic growth is determined by the mobilization of land, primary commodities and unskilled labor. This stage is

characterized by high rates of self-employment, low wages and almost no knowledge creation of innovation (Porter et al., 2002). Sala-i-Martin et al. (2014)indicate in the Global

Competitiveness Report that maintaining competitiveness at this stage is based on well-functioning public and private institutions, a well-developed infrastructure, a stable macroeconomic environment and a workforce with at least a basic education.

education and training, efficient goods markets, well-functioning labour markets, the ability to harness the benefits of existing technologies and developed financial markets.

As countries move to the third, high-income status stage, also referred to as the innovation-driven stage, which is based upon a technology generating economy, they generate and commercialize new knowledge. The ability to rapidly shift to new technologies is an

important feature in high-income status stage. Since wages have risen to a very high point in this stage, firms must compete with new and unique products. This stage is characterized by an increase in the service sector and a decrease of the manufacturing sector. Since innovation drives competitiveness, there are substantially more opportunities for entrepreneurial

activities than in the previous stage (Porter et al., 2002, Acs et al. 2008). “Businesses must compete by producing new and different goods using the most sophisticated production processes and by innovating new ones” (Sala-i-Martin et al., 2014).

In line with these theories, researchers, mostly by referring to data from the Global

Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) research program, which assesses entrepreneurial activity data in both developed and developing countries by using uniform definitions and data collection across countries for international comparison, have shown that there is a U-shaped distribution of entrepreneurship, influenced by economic development and entrepreneurship is most prevalent in high and low income countries. Among these researchers are Carree et al. (2002) who found empirical support for this hypothesis by running a multiple-equation analysis on data from 23 OECD countries. Other authors who have given prove for the U-shaped framework using the GEM database include Wennekers et al. (2005), Acs et al. (1994), Acs et al. (2008) and McMullet et al. (2008). In general, the distribution of

entrepreneurship resembles a U-shaped model, however, it can be seen from the GEM data that low-income countries even have a higher level of entrepreneurial activity than high-income countries (Acs et al. 2008). Explanations for the U-shaped model will be further elaborated in the Conceptual Model of this paper.

To show the U-shaped distribution of entrepreneurship, data from three different countries, namely Rwanda, Romania and the Netherlands has been collected for this paper. In

Sala-i-Martin et al. (2014) used two criteria to allocate each country into a stage of development, namely GDP per capita at market exchange rates, which could be used as a proxy for wages and the share of mineral goods in total exports, assuming that a country with more than 70 percent of its exports consisting of mineral products is factor driven. The three countries used for this survey are all depicted in the paper’s table “Countries/economies at each stage of development”. As can be seen, Rwanda can be classified as “Stage 1”, a factor-driven economy, Romania on the other hand is described as “Stage 2”, an efficiency-driven economy, whereas the Netherlands are included in “Stage 3”, innovation-driven economies (Sala-i-Martin et al., 2014).

2 Conceptual model

Figure 2.1 Conceptual model

2.1 Entrepreneurship and economic development

Although there is a variety of existing literature on how media influences the public, there is very little research on how media influences entrepreneurship. But the direct topic of media's influence on entrepreneurship in the context of economic development is almost inexistent.

In general, various authors such as Schultz (1990) or Iyigun and Owen (1998) have identified a negative empirical relationship between economic development and entrepreneurship. The main reason for this phenomenon, according to Lucas (1978), is that an increase in real wages also leads to a rise in the opportunity cost of self-employment relative to the return. A

different perspective is given by Iyigun and Owen (1998) who point out that a rise in

economic development leads to a decrease in individuals that are willing to face the high risks associated with becoming self-employed relative to ‘safe’ earnings from employment. The authors’ model shows that even though entrepreneurial investment may be initially positively influenced by an increase in a country’s economies development, the increasing risk of entrepreneurial ventures offsets this positive effect and resources are rather devoted to professional activities than to entrepreneurship as economic development increases. However, despite the common theory in literature of a negative empirical relationship between economic development and entrepreneurship, Acs et al. (1994) found a U-shaped relationship, arguing that at high levels of economic development, increasing income enhances consumer demand for variety, thereby creating new market niches for small businesses. Yet, there are multiple explanations for this U-shaped relationship. According to Maslow (1970), there is a hierarchy of human motivations, starting with physical needs at the bottom to self-realization at the top level. Since being an entrepreneur leads to more

In general, according to Linan and Chen (2006), the intention of carrying out behaviours is affected by various different factors, such as values, needs, wants, habits and beliefs.

Similarly, such factors also influence entrepreneurial intentions. What is more, McMullen et al. (2008) point out the importance of economic institutions by arguing that the decision to become self-employed is embedded in a matrix of institutions that influences the motivation as well as the uncertainty one experiences in the decision-making process. This matrix comprises different institutions of economic freedom within a nation that are often related to economic development, such as freedom from corruption, business freedom, which leads to less difficulty of opening and operating business or sufficient funding from banks because of financial freedom. In line with the above-mentioned theory of Lucas (1978), the authors argue that the higher the promised pay-out of employment, the higher the opportunity costs

associated with choosing self-employment over employment. Thus, increases in income associated with employment as a result of economic development lead to a decrease in the attractiveness of self-employment. On the other hand, a decrease in income of the

employment increases the attractiveness of entrepreneurship and in case of the emergence of unemployment and it pushes individuals into so-called necessity-motivated entrepreneurship (McMullet et al., 2008).

This form of entrepreneurship, namely necessity-motivated entrepreneurship, is an essential distinction in this paper. When it comes to describing the influence of economic development on entrepreneurial activity, it is important to distinguish between two contextual motivations, necessity- and opportunity-motivated entrepreneurship. According to Hechavarria and

Reynolds (2009), contextual motivation is “the influence of social, economic and political environments that shape individual behaviors and thus may impact the likelihood of new firm founding among nascent entrepreneurs”. The authors state that the entrepreneur’s perception of the environment plays a key role in the firm’s chances of success. Looking at the two disparate contextual motivations, Acs et al. (2005) indicate that necessity-motivated entrepreneurship is initiated as a last resort, since these people feel compelled to start a business because all other options for work are absent or unsatisfactory. Thus, the decision to become an entrepreneur is a forced choice and the individuals are pushed into

self-employment due to the absence of alternatives. In contrast, opportunity-motivated

entrepreneurship is initiated when people perceive a business opportunity and choose to start a business as one of many possible career options. Individuals are pulled into

and in new jobs. In contrast, necessity entrepreneurs generally found smaller businesses. Even though necessity and opportunity motivated entrepreneurs establish different kinds of

businesses, they still have the same probability to succeed. Regarding the distribution of the two forms of entrepreneurship, the authors found that around two-thirds of entrepreneurs classify themselves as opportunity motivated while one-third classifies itself as necessity motivated. Furthermore, these two forms of entrepreneurship are differently distributed among females and males. For instance, Levie et al. (2011) found that 18 percent of male established business founders identify redundancy or unemployment as a major influence to become an entrepreneur. In contrast, only 5 percent of female established business founders became entrepreneurs because of unemployment. Thus, according to the authors’ research, necessity motivated entrepreneurship as a cause of unemployment is more common among male entrepreneurs. Another perspective is given by Maloney (2004), who describes the necessity-motivated entrepreneurship as phenomenon that includes both short-term, temporary intentions and long-term intentions and states that almost 20 percent of all

entrepreneurs see self-employment as a temporary activity while they are looking for a “real” job.

As mentioned above, many authors who support the U-shaped distribution of

entrepreneurship, such as Wennekers et al. (2005) and McMullet et al. (2008) use nascent entrepreneurship as a metric, or at least GEM’s so-called TEA-measures that includes nascent entrepreneurs and also new business that have been established more than three months but less than 42 months ago. Wong et al. (2005) describe the Total early-stage Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA) rate as “a measurement of the proportion of working-age adults in the population who are either involved in the process of starting-up a business or are active as owner-managers of enterprises less than 42 months old”. More precisely, Kelley et al. (2012) categorize entrepreneurship into several phases, starting with potential entrepreneurs who are “those that see opportunities in their area and believe they have the capabilities to start businesses”. These potential entrepreneurs may or may not actually venture into

Given the U-shaped distribution of this total early-stage Entrepreneurial Activity rate, the question arises as whether the same U-shaped distribution exists if we only look at the first phase of entrepreneurship, namely the potential entrepreneurs and their entrepreneurial intentions and exclude nascent activity and new businesses. Kelley et al. (2012) argue that “entrepreneurial intentions represent the percentage of individuals who expect to start a new business within the next three years. Intent to start a business is an important measure of potential entrepreneurship in a society because it correlates positively with TEA rate.”. As shown by Kelley et al. (2012), entrepreneurial intentions are the first step towards

entrepreneurial activity and the TEA rate is strongly influenced by entrepreneurial intentions of potential entrepreneurs. This paper assumes a similar U-shaped model of the distribution of entrepreneurial intentions as the model of the distribution of entrepreneurship used by

Wennekers et al. (2005), Acs et al. (1994), Acs et al. (2008) and McMullet et al. (2008). In line with Wennekers et al. (2005), who indicated that the GEM model defines the rate of entrepreneurship as the number of people actively involved in attempting to start a new business, which includes a certain level of entrepreneurial intentions. Thus, I suppose that the U-shaped distribution of the TEA in the GEM model will have similarities with the

distribution of entrepreneurial intentions with respect to economic development.

2.2 The influence of media on entrepreneurial intentions

out, it can still shape opinions, attitudes and values. Thus, media may not change what you think but it can tell you what to think about.

In contrast, Lasswell (1948) indicates that media is capable of changing values and attitudes. Klapper (1960), on the other hand, points out that media acts as reinforcement of values, opinions and ideas that are already held by audiences. According to Klapper, individuals either reject information delivered by media that is contradicting their values or the values held by individuals are reinforced by the information that confirms their already existing values. Since the three theories all have different implications, it is essential to investigate which one of them best suits as explanation for the influence of media on the public, especially in the context of economic development.

Although there is a research gap when it comes to the explanation of how economic development moderates the influence of media on entrepreneurship, Hindle and Klyver (2007) aim to close this gap by indicating that stories about successful entrepreneurs conveyed in media are not significantly associated with opportunity search and start-up activity, also referred to as nascent entrepreneurial activity, but they have a positive impact on firms established between 3 and 42 months, referred to as 'new businesses' that evolved from opportunity-motivated entrepreneurship. 'Good news' entrepreneurship stories are more likely to influence businessmen who pursue an opportunity (opportunity-motivated

entrepreneurship), which is more common in high income countries and not those who start and run a business because they have no other choice (necessity-motivated entrepreneurship), which is more prevalent in low income countries. The authors argue that their findings can be linked to Klapper's reinforcement theory (1960), which suggest that media is only capable of reinforcing the public's existing values but not capable of changing or shaping them. Thus, stories about successful entrepreneurs can reinforce the commitment of businessmen by showing them that their efforts and hard work can lead to huge benefits. The authors indicate that even though media has hardly any influence on the willingness to become an

entrepreneur, media can support existing early-stage business owners by providing them with aspirations and propensity to persevere (Hindle and Klyver, 2007).

Combining the framework of the U-shaped distribution of entrepreneurial intentions with the influence of media on entrepreneurial intentions, this paper aims to examine if media

Klyver (2007) found that stories about successful entrepreneurs conveyed in media are not significantly associated with nascent entrepreneurial activity but have a positive influence on new businesses that evolved from opportunity-motivated entrepreneurship, the question arises as if similar findings will be discovered in this paper, which uses a different form of media coverage of entrepreneurship, namely an article on the benefits of being an entrepreneur, instead of stories about successful entrepreneurs used by Hindle and Klyver. What is more, since this work focuses specifically on measuring entrepreneurial intentions, which are the preliminary stage of entrepreneurship and part of nascent entrepreneurship and not on measuring the total entrepreneurial activity including new business, a different outcome than the one found by Hindle and Klyver (2007) may be the result.

Even though Hindle and Klyver (2007) did not find a significant result regarding the

relationship between nascent entrepreneurship and media, the question arises if this outcome, namely an inexistent impact of media on entrepreneurial intentions is also true for this work. Regarding the authors findings of the positive influence of media coverage of successful entrepreneurs on new businesses that evolved from opportunity-motivated entrepreneurship, one may assume that opportunity motivated entrepreneurs may be stronger influenced by media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship. This assumption would imply that media has a stronger influence on entrepreneurial intentions in countries with a high level of

economic development, since opportunity entrepreneurs are mostly located in high income countries and less prevalent in low income countries, in which necessity-motivated

entrepreneurship is more common. However, since the authors also argue that their findings can be linked to Klapper's reinforcement theory (1960), which suggest that media is capable of reinforcing the public's existing values and entrepreneurial activity, including

entrepreneurial intentions are extremely high if not the highest, as Acs et al. (2008) argue, in low income countries, where necessity motivated entrepreneurship is prevalent, I suppose that the distribution of the influence of media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship on entrepreneurial intentions is U-shaped, impacting the intentions to become an entrepreneur stronger in low and high income countries and less strong in middle income countries, where entrepreneurial intentions are likely relatively lower.

Figure 2.2 Expected U-shaped distribution of the impact of media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship on entrepreneurial intentions

3 Research Methodology

This chapter will elaborate on the methods used to conduct this research. Quantitative research was conducted since it is the most suitable method to measure how independent variables affect dependent variables, as Baker (1999) points out. This chapter is structured as follows: First, the research design will be discussed. Second, the sample and data collection method are described, followed by the measurements and the tests to analyze the data. 3.1 Research design

The hypotheses are assessed through primary data collected with the use of surveys, which involves sampling a representative proportion of the population. This quantitative data holds a number of accepted statistical standards for the validity of the approach, such as the number of respondents that are required to establish a statistically significant result. The time horizon of this research is cross-sectional, given that the data is gathered at one specific moment. This study comprises one independent variable, media coverage of the benefits of

entrepreneurship and one dependent variable, entrepreneurial intentions. The level of economic development serves as a moderator. To test the hypotheses, a vignette study was conducted. Vignettes refer to text, images or other forms of stimuli, such as media covering the benefits of entrepreneurship, which research participants are asked to respond. This could be labeled a quasi-experimental design: in three conditions, we give a group of respondents a media covering message on the benefits of entrepreneurship and with the help of a before and after measurement, we hope to conclude the possible effects. This technique is particularly well suited for studies that examine the impact of information on a participant (Hughes and Huby, 2002). A multi linear regression technique to identify the effects of the independent variable on the dependent variable was implemented.

Independent variable: Media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship

In order to measure the influence of media on entrepreneurship, a short article on the benefits of entrepreneurship was provided to the respondents. To guarantee reliable results, the same article was used for all the three countries.

Dependent variable: Entrepreneurial intentions

reflects the perception that the behavior is personally controllable (Ajzen, 2002, Linan and Chen 2006). Question 12-17 (2a) and 38-43 (2b) cover this dimension. The third dimension, entrepreneurial intentions measures the respondents’ intentions to become an entrepreneur. Question 18-23 (3a) and question 44-49 (3b) examine the entrepreneurial intentions of the respondents.

Moderating variable: Economic development

Economic development was classified in line with Porter et al. (2002), suggesting an

evolution from a resource-based to a knowledge-based economy, starting with Rwanda, at the lowest level of development, the factor-driven stage, followed by Romania, with a middle-income status stage, namely the investment-driven stage and the Netherlands, which belongs to the innovation-driven stage. The categorization of these countries is derived from the work of Sala-i-Martin et al. (2014) in which Rwanda was classified as “Stage 1”, a factor-driven economy, Romania on the other hand was described as “Stage 2”, an efficiency-driven economy, whereas the Netherlands was included in “Stage 3”, innovation-driven economies.

3.2 Data collection

In order to test the two hypotheses, a survey with questionnaires was conducted. The Linkert scale asks for the individual opinion on a given topic, namely the disagreement or agreement of a question on a symmetric scale. Participants are required to respond to the items on a five-point Likert scale ranging from '1' (totally disagree) to '5' (totally agree).

The questionnaire used in this paper is based on the existent theoretical and empirical literature about the influence of media on entrepreneurial intention. As a result, the

questionnaire includes the same questions of the entrepreneurial intention questionnaire used by Linan and Chen (2006), which is shown in detail in the Appendix 9. First, questions about the entrepreneurial intention of the respondent were asked. Second, the respondent read a short article about the benefits of entrepreneurship. Third, the respondent's entrepreneurial intentions were again examined in order to investigate if the article had a positive impact on his entrepreneurial intentions. The questionnaire took about 15-20 minutes in total, depending on the respondent’s level of English. The respondents did not receive any financial

In Rwanda, the survey was mostly conducted by the respondents on my personal computer, since not every Rwandan has access to a computer. The same method of primary data collection was applied in Romania, where I asked my friend George-Daniel Belu to collect the data for me in return of a small financial compensation of 100 Euros for his efforts. In contrast to Rwanda, the survey was also distributed via emails and social media in Romania. Similarly, I distributed the survey on social media and via emails in the Netherlands, mainly among students and I looked for random respondents in shopping malls and coffeehouses in order to guarantee a broad, diverse sample.

3.3 Sample

Regarding the sample size, the sample of this research contains 313 participants in total, 311 of them being valid, consisting of at least 100 respondents from each country with a different economic development, namely Rwanda (N=100), Romania (N=106) and the Netherlands (N=107). Moreover, the respondents had to have at least secondary level of education so that they are in a better position to respond to the survey questions.

3.4 Hypothesis testing

This paper used Statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) to apply a multi linear regression technique on the data. Once data had been obtained, it was gathered into groups and SPSS measured if there exists correlation between the variables. To test the hypotheses, the three different surveys were merged into one data file and the data was checked for errors. Next, a descriptive analysis was conducted, followed by reliability analysis by looking at the internal consistency and the Cronbach’s Alphas of the dependent variables. Then, a one-way multivariate analysis of variance was conducted on SPSS. First, the correlation of the

variables was checked, since the dependent variables should be moderately correlated with each other. If the correlations were low, separate one-way ANOVAs could have been conducted (Tabachnick et al., 2001). However, as explained in the next chapter, the correlations were high and entrepreneurial intentions were categorized as professional attraction and perceived social norms (1a/1b), entrepreneurial capacity (2a/2b) and

4 Results

This Chapter presents the results of the statistical analyses that were conducted and described in Chapter 3. The aim of this chapter is to test the two hypotheses, namely "Media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship has a positive influence on entrepreneurial intentions" and "Media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship has a U-shaped influence on

entrepreneurial intentions the higher the economic development of a country". Based on the literature review, both hypotheses are expected to be true. First, the results of descriptive and the reliability analysis will be given. Second, the results of the MANOVA analysis will be described and a short summary will be given.

4.1 Description of the sample and measurement tools

As shown in detail in Appendix 4, the sample of this research consists of 313 respondents, 100 of them being from Rwanda, 106 from Romania and 107 from the Netherlands. Looking at the merged dataset of 313 respondents, the minimum score for the three dimensions of entrepreneurial intentions before and the three dimensions after reading the article stood at 1 which means “totally disagree”. This minimum result was found in Romania and in the Netherlands. The minimum in Rwanda was 2.17. In contrast, the maximum of 7 (“totally agree”) was found in all of the three countries. Regarding the mean values for each

dimension, Rwanda scored the highest, having a mean of 5.94 for dimension 1a and 6.33 for 1b, followed by the Netherlands (5.46 (1a) and 5.66(1b)) and Romania (3.86 (1a) and 4.06 (1b). Similarly, Rwanda had higher mean values for the second dimension (5.22 (2a) and 5.58 (2b)) than the Netherlands (4.43 (2a) and 4.53 (2b)) and Romania (2.50 (2a) and 2.58 (2b)). The third dimension, entrepreneurial intentions, showed that it was the highest in Rwanda (5.84 (3a) and 6.46 (3b)), followed by the Netherlands (4,84 (3a) and 5,15(3b)) and Romania (3,07 (3a) and 3,54 (3b)). As can be seen in the Appendix 4, in general, standard deviation was significantly higher in Romania and the Netherlands compared to Rwanda.

4.2 Reliability analysis

4.2.1 All constructs are reliable

Professional attraction and Perceived social norms, Cronbach’s Alpha was 0.943 and for the same dimension after reading the article is stood at 0.948. Similarly, high results were found for the second dimension, entrepreneurial capacity, for which Cronbach’s Alpha was 0.969 and 0.978 after the respondents read the article. Lastly, when it came to the third dimension, entrepreneurial intention, Cronbach’s Alphas of 0.983 and 0.986 (after reading the article) were reported.

4.3 Correlation plots

Appendix 2 depicts the correlation plots for the three dimensions, namely professional attraction and perceived social norms (1a/1b), entrepreneurial capacity (2a/2b) and entrepreneurial intentions (3a/3b), created with SPSS. Scatter plots show how much one variable is affected by another. As the plots show, the three dependent variables are highly correlated. In fact, since, for all cases, both variables move in the same direction, they are positively correlated (Tabachnick et al., 2001). In other words, on average, if respondents scored high on one of the three dimensions of entrepreneurial intentions, they also scored high on the other dimensions.

4.4 Multivariate analysis of variance: The impact of media on entrepreneurial intentions

To answer the research question and to test the two hypotheses, a MANOVA had been

performed. The multivariate analysis of variance was conducted to examine whether media in the form of an article on the benefits of entrepreneurship had a positive impact on the three elements of entrepreneurial intentions and if so, in which countries this effect was stronger and in which ones it was less strong. The three dependent variables describing entrepreneurial intentions were professional attraction and perceived social norms (1a/1b), entrepreneurial capacity (2a/2b) and entrepreneurial intentions (3a/3b), thus resulting in a total number of six dependent variables. The independent variable used for this analysis was media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship and the level of economic development, which was divided into three groups, Rwanda (1.00), Romania (2.00) and the Netherlands (3.00) served as a moderating variable.

are required for a one-way MANOVA. As shown in Appendix 3, preliminary assumption testing on all the variables was conducted in order to check for normality, linearity, univariate and multivariate outliers, homogeneity of variance-covariance matrices and multicollinearity and no violations were found. Even though a dataset with a large sample size could tolerate a small number of outliers, a new dataset without outliers was created on which the MANOVA was then conducted (Tabachnick et al., 2001).

I will now turn to describe the results of the multivariate tests of the MANOVA, which illustrate the presence of statistically differences among the groups. Once these significant differences among the groups have been found, test of between-subjects effects further examine the different groups in relation with each of the dependent variables. All the results described can be found in detail in Appendix 6-8.

4.4.1 Multivariate tests: Examining if the impact of media depends on the level of economic development

In order to test if the three dimensions of entrepreneurial intentions of the respondents depend on the level of economic development, a MANOVA was conducted. As mentioned above, the multivariate tests of the MANOVA were conducted on the new dataset that excluded outliers. The results of the multivariate test performed in the MANOVA can be seen in Appendix 6. In this work, Wilks’ Lambda is used to test whether differences between the means of groups of subjects on a combination of dependent variables can be found. Here, six dependent variables (factor 1) are taken into consideration, namely professional attraction and perceived social norms (dv_I: 1=1a, 2=2b), entrepreneurial capacity (dv_II: 1=2a, 2=2b) and entrepreneurial intentions (dv_3: 1=3a, 2=3b). Moreover, the mean of this combination was compared for the three groups of economic development, which are Rwanda (1.00), Romania (2.00) and the Netherlands (3.00). The significant levels of all the variables and the interaction effects, which illustrate whether there are statistically differences within the groups on a linear combination of the dependent variables, are shown in Appendix 6. As can be observed from the results of the multivariate test of the MANOVA, there are statistically significant

respondent’s location, F (6, 590) = 5.79, p<.0005; Wilk’s A = .892, partial Eta Squared = 0.056.

Therefore, it can be concluded that the three dimensions of entrepreneurial intentions, both before (1a, 2a, 3a) and after reading the article on the benefits of entrepreneurship (1b, 2b, 3b), are significantly dependent on the level of economic development (p<.0005).

4.4.2 Test of between-subject effects: The differences between the three dimensions of entrepreneurial intentions in the context of the level of economic development

Given the significant results of the multivariate tests, further examination regarding to each of the six dependent variables follows. The test of between-subject effects provides information for this investigation. The results of the test are shown in Appendix 7 and illustrate the statistically significant differences of the dimensions of entrepreneurial intentions depending on the level of economic development.

4.4.3 Multiple Comparisons of the three dimensions of entrepreneurial intentions The results presented in Appendix 8 show that there is an overall significant difference in means, but it is not clear where these differences occurred. Table 4.1 illustrates the results of the Bonferroni post hoc test, which allows to examine which specific means differed. As can be seen from the significance level for differences between the individual time points, there was significant difference (p<.0005) in all of the three dependent variables for every level of economic development. Looking at the “Mean Difference (I-J)” between the three levels of economic development, it can be observed that the highest mean differences for the

Netherlands and Romania was found. In line with the literature review and the hypothesis, the Mean Difference between Rwanda and the Netherlands was the lowest. When it comes to professional attraction and perceived social norms, the mean difference was 0.50. Similarly, the mean difference of entrepreneurial capacity was found to be 0.92 and for the third dimension, entrepreneurial intentions, a mean difference of 1.08 was observed.

Measure (I) Economic

Development (J) Economic Development Mean Difference (I-J)

Std.

Error Sig. 95% Confidence Interval: Lower Bound 95% Confidence Interval: Upper Bound Professional attraction and perceived social norms Rwanda Romania 2.2278* .12145 .000 1.9354 2.5202 Netherlands .5041* .12204 .000 .2103 .7980 Romania Rwanda -2.2278* .12145 .000 -2.5202 -1.9354 Netherlands -1.7237* .12083 .000 -2.0146 -1.4328 Netherlands Rwanda -.5041* .12204 .000 -.7980 -.2103 Romania 1.7237* .12083 .000 1.4328 2.0146 Entrepreneurial

capacity Rwanda Romania Netherlands 2.9489* .9173* .15838 .15916 .000 2.5676 .000 .5341 3.3303 1.3005 Romania Rwanda -2.9489* .15838 .000 -3.3303 -2.5676 Netherlands -2.0317* .15757 .000 -2.4110 -1.6523 Netherlands Rwanda -.9173* .15916 .000 -1.3005 -.5341 Romania 2.0317* .15757 .000 1.6523 2.4110 Entrepreneurial intentions Rwanda Romania 2.9621* .19085 .000 2.5026 3.4216 Netherlands 1.0757* .19179 .000 .6139 1.5374 Romania Rwanda -2.9621* .19085 .000 -3.4216 -2.5026 Netherlands -1.8864* .18988 .000 -2.3436 -1.4293 Netherlands Rwanda -1.0757* .19179 .000 -1.5374 -.6139 Romania 1.8864* .18988 .000 1.4293 2.3436 Table 4.1 The results of the Bonferroni post hoc test

The results of the MANOVA are shown in the following graphs:

Graph 4.2 The distribution of entrepreneurial intentions in the context of economic development

4.4.4 Testing the two hypotheses

Regarding the two hypotheses postulated in this work, Graph 4.3 can serve as a mean to examine whether the hypotheses are supported or not. As the graph shows, the first

hypothesis, “Media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship has a positive influence on entrepreneurial intentions” is supported, since for all levels of economic development, media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship has a positive effect on the three entrepreneurial intentions. Interestingly, for all countries, the article had the strongest positive impact on the third dimension, entrepreneurial intensions, affecting respondents in Rwanda the most, followed by respondents in Romania and in the Netherlands. The second strongest impact of the article was found for the first dimension, professional attraction and perceived social norms. Similar to the article’s impact on the third dimension, the article had the highest positive influence on the first dimension, in Rwanda, followed by Romania and the

Netherlands. Looking at the influence of the article on the second dimension, entrepreneurial capacity, one can observe that this dimension was least affected by the article. Still, media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship was found to influence respondents’

Graph 4.3 The impact of media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship on entrepreneurial intentions

4.5 Summary

The literature review suggested a positive impact of the article on the benefits of

entrepreneurship on entrepreneurial intentions and a U-shaped distribution of entrepreneurial intentions as well as a U-shaped distribution of the article’s impact on entrepreneurial

intentions the higher the level of economic development. These expectations led to the postulation of two hypotheses, which were discussed in detail in the previous chapters. It was expected that the three dimensions of entrepreneurial intensions were least influenced in Romania, an efficiency-driven stage economy, followed by the Netherlands and Rwanda. The results of the multivariate analysis of variance partially confirmed Hypothesis 1 but rejected Hypotheses 2. In line with the literature, media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship had a positive impact on all of the three dimensions of entrepreneurial intentions in each of the different levels of economic development. However, in contrast to the expectations, this impact was not found to have a U-shape distribution, such as suggested by Hypothesis 2, but rather resembles a declining, linear distribution, the higher the level of economic

driven economy and not in Romania, an efficiency-driven economy, which can be interesting for further research.

5 Discussion and Conclusion

This chapter discusses the results of the multivariate analysis conducted in this work and elaborated in the previous chapter. After the discussion, limitations of this paper will be listed, a conclusion will be drawn and finally, recommendations for future research will be provided. 5.1 Discussion

In this paper, a literature study covering the main concept of entrepreneurial intentions, the impact of media on these intentions and the context of economic development was given, combined with empirical research in order to answer the research questions and give proof of the following hypotheses of this work:

H1: “Media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship has a positive influence on entrepreneurial intentions”.

H2: "Media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship has a U-shaped influence on entrepreneurial intentions the higher the economic development of a country".

In other words, the research question of this research is to which extent media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship positively affects entrepreneurial intentions. These

entrepreneurial intentions can be categorized into three different dimensions, namely professional attraction and perceived social norms, entrepreneurial capacity and

These expectations, which were based on previous academic theories and findings, were partially met. As the descriptives of the sample illustrated, the article on the benefits of entrepreneurship had a positive impact on the respondents’ entrepreneurial intentions. This impact differed depending on the level of economic development of each country. However, in contradiction with the expectations based on the literature review, the impact did not have a U-shaped distribution on entrepreneurial intentions but was found to have a declining, linear distribution the higher the level of economic development. The article had the strongest positive influence in Rwanda, followed by Romania and the Netherlands.

5.2 Limitations

The limitations of this work are addressed as implicit recommendations for future research. Among the limitations of this work, there are three limitations that had the greatest potential impact on the quality of findings and the ability to effectively answer the research question. These include potential language barriers, a lack of personal information of the respondents and the choice of the article about the benefits of entrepreneurship. First and foremost, this study is limited in terms of accuracy of the responses collected in Rwanda and Romania, since the respondents’ level of English may be limited in these countries. In fact, given the number of outliers in these two countries, which were significantly higher than in the Netherlands, one could assume that some respondents may not have fully understood every question. When collecting the data in Rwanda, I often explained the meaning of some words to respondents so that they fully understood the questions.

Second, regarding the sampling strategy, this study is limited in terms of a lack of the respondents’ personal information. This study used the same questions of the survey conducted by Linan and Chen (2006), which does not include any questions regarding the respondent’s gender, age and educational or professional background. Yet, this information could be essential in order to examine the different impact of media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship on entrepreneurial intentions within countries. Although an equal

within the three countries, which may arise from different gender, age and the respondent’s educational background as well as his or her work experience or financial situation.

Third, measuring the impact of media with the article used in this study results in the

limitation of a lack of generalizability. The article on the benefits of entrepreneurship may not impact the respondents’ entrepreneurial intentions to the same extent as other newspaper articles or other forms of media, such as books, movies or the radio. By using different forms of media, the distribution of the impact of media on the entrepreneurial intentions in the context of economic development may be different.

5.3 Conclusion

Since entrepreneurship is of the utmost importance for a country's economy and economic development, policymakers and government institutions desperately aim to increase

entrepreneurial intentions and activities. Among other instruments, different forms of media are used to increase entrepreneurship. According to Hyndle and Kliver (2007), even though this topic is essential for economic welfare, the direct effect of media on entrepreneurship is sadly mostly neglected in academic research. Thus, given the debate if media is a suitable mean to boost a country’s entrepreneurial activity, conducting a survey that investigates if media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship positively influences entrepreneurial intentions, which are the basis for entrepreneurial activity, was meaningful and necessary. As mentioned above, this study examined the relationship between entrepreneurial intentions and the level of economic development, a study that has not been done before. It was

investigated if media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship has an influence on entrepreneurial intentions and of so, if this impact has a U-shaped distribution in context of economic development. Moreover, this study investigated which of the three theories on how media affects the public is the most suitable to describe the effect of the article on the

5.3.1 The value of communicating the benefits of entrepreneurship to the public

Looking at the results of the MANOVA, one can see that media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship has a positive influence on entrepreneurial intentions in all of the three countries with different levels of economic development, namely Rwanda, a factor-driven stage economy, Romania, an efficiency-driven stage economy and the Netherlands, an innovation-driven stage economy. However, in contrast to the literature which suggests that media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship drives stronger entrepreneurial intentions in countries with either a relatively low level or a relatively high level of economic

development of a country, this U-shaped distribution of the effect of media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship on entrepreneurial intentions was not found. The U-shaped distribution of entrepreneurial intentions was derived from the U-shaped distribution of entrepreneurship found by McMullet et al. (2008) and Wennekers et al. (2005), which is the result of the fact that the level of entrepreneurship in low income countries is high since people mainly become entrepreneurs because of a lack of other professional opportunities. In middle income countries, entrepreneurship is lower, because of a higher employment rate and opportunity costs associated with the risk of entrepreneurship. In high income countries, however, entrepreneurship is high again, because of the need of self-realization. This U-shaped distribution of entrepreneurship and the three theories on how media influences the public suggested that there will be a similar distribution when it comes to the effect of media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship on entrepreneurial intentions. However, this study revealed a declining, linear relationship between the impact of the article on

entrepreneurial intentions and the level of economic development. An explanation for these findings is that people in low and middle income countries, which are mainly necessity-motivated entrepreneurs, are stronger influenced by media coverage of the benefits of

entrepreneurship, since they may not have known about these benefits before, due to a lack of education and poor access to information. In high income countries, such as the Netherlands, people may be more aware of the advantages of being an entrepreneur and thus, may be less influenced by the article, because they have already heard of the facts presented in the article. 5.3.2 The effect of the article on entrepreneurial intentions

descriptives shown in Appendix 4, one can see that there are indeed differences between the mean values of each of the three dimensions for entrepreneurial intentions before and after reading the article. However, as already described in Chapter 4, these differences are not extremely high. Thus, Laswell’s theory (1948), which argues that media is a very powerful institution that is capable of changing values and attitudes may not be applicable, since the respondents did not completely change their entrepreneurial intentions after reading the article. Moreover, Klapper’s reinforcement theory (1960), which states that media acts as a reinforcement to its audiences and that media has little power to challenge beliefs, values and ideas already held by recipients, may also not be the best suited theory to describe the impact of media on entrepreneurial intentions, because the results of the survey indicate that media does not just have a little impact on entrepreneurial intentions but moderately influences them. Therefore, I argue that Hall’s 'Agenda Setting Function Theory' (1975) is the most accurate theory for describing the influence of media on entrepreneurial intentions. This theory falls between the change and reinforcement theory and implies that media has a greater impact than just reinforcement but not enough power to change values. In view of the results of this survey, the article had a moderate effect on the respondents’ entrepreneurial intentions, not as significant as Laswell’s theory (1948) and not as low as Klapper’s reinforcement theory (1960) would suggest, but in line with Hall’s theory (1975), the article had enough power to help shaping opinions, attitudes and values. As a result, as Hall (1975) suggests, media

coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship cannot change ‘what the respondents think’ but it can tell them ‘what to think about’. Hence, this work found that media can focus the attention of the public in certain directions by providing information, such as the benefits of

entrepreneurship, from specific points of view and perspectives.

The results of this study contradict the previous research in this field conducted by Hindle and Klyver (2007) who argue that media hardly impacts the willingness to become an

entrepreneur but positively influences new and established businessmen. The authors state that their findings can best be linked to Klapper's reinforcement theory (1960), since their study revealed that media mostly affected entrepreneurs who have been doing business for more than three months by showing them that their efforts and hard work can lead to huge benefits. Thus, stories about successful entrepreneurs can reinforce the commitment of businessmen. In contrast, this study shows that in each of the three countries examined, the third dimension of entrepreneurial intentions, namely the intentions to become an

Hall’s theory (1975) is the most accurate to describe the impact of media on entrepreneurial intentions. Hence, in line with Hindle and Klyver (2007), media can support existing early-stage business owners by providing them with aspirations and propensity to persevere, but media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship also positively influences people’s willingness to become an entrepreneur, as the findings of this study illustrate.

5.3.3 New ways of thinking on the impact of media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship on entrepreneurial intentions

These new perceptions about the impact of media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship on entrepreneurial intentions could be of great value for governments, politicians, public institutions, NGOs and media representatives, who could increase entrepreneurial intentions by communicating the benefits of entrepreneurship through media. In line with Kelley et al. (2012), who indicate that entrepreneurship starts with the intent to establish a business, these entrepreneurial intentions then may lead to nascent activity, which can be described as entrepreneurs who are in the first three months of running a new business. Thus, as this study shows, if governments, institutions or other parties increase the media coverage of the

benefits of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial intentions will increase, which, according to Kelley et al. (2012), will ultimately augment the level of entrepreneurial activity. As the results of the survey illustrate, institutions which aim to increase a country’s level of

entrepreneurship in each of the different countries in terms of economic development, have to understand that there is a positive impact of media coverage of the benefits of

entrepreneurship on entrepreneurial intentions in each of the three levels of economic development and that it is expedient to communicate the benefits of entrepreneurship to the public in order to increase entrepreneurial intentions.

economic development, since entrepreneurship creates new businesses, which create new jobs, intensify competition and increase innovation (Amoros and Bosma, 2013). Thus, as this study reveals, increasing media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship can positively influence entrepreneurial intentions, thereby leading to a higher level of entrepreneurship and economic development.

5.4 Future research

This study examined the influence of media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship on entrepreneurial intentions in the context of economic development, a study that has not been done before. This paper is a first step for understanding why media coverage of the benefits of entrepreneurship has a different impact on entrepreneurial intentions depending on a

country’s level of economic development. Looking at future research, more research

regarding the influence of media on specific population groups within countries is necessary to better comprehend how to increase entrepreneurial intentions of specific sections of the population, which could ultimately lead to a higher and more equally distributed economic development. Since this work may be limited in terms of specific personal information of the respondents, which could help to better understand the differences in entrepreneurial

intentions within the three countries that arises from different gender, age and the respondent’s educational background, future research should focus on identifying and comparing these potentially influential variables on entrepreneurial intentions. Even though there are various studies that examine differences in terms of entrepreneurship regarding gender, such as Levie et al. (2011), who investigate the impact of unemployment on the distribution of male and female business founders, there is still a lack of research on how these personal details influence the impact of media on entrepreneurial intentions.

Moreover, since some of the respondents in Rwanda and Romania may not have fully understood every question due to their limited level of English, future research should translate the survey into the local languages of the respondents. This can help to overcome language barriers and may lead to more accurate findings. What is more, given the fact that the impact of media on entrepreneurial intentions was measured with the unique article used in this study, the results obtained from this study cannot be generalized, since other

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