University students’ perceptions of their abilities relate to their entrepreneurial intent

The purpose of this paper is to examine to what extent Finnish university students endorse entrepreneurial intent and the ways in which they position themselves in relation to entrepreneurship according to their self-perceived abilities or “ability self”.

The study was conducted by means of an e-survey, and the participants comprised the sample of students (n =1,819) from two Finnish universities, representing diverse fields of study.

It was found that a great majority of the students showed a relatively low intent to become an entrepreneur. The perception of abilities, such as innovativeness and ambitiousness-competitiveness, was positively related with entrepreneurial intent, whereas the perception of academic abilities and “conventional” employee skills indicated inverse associations.