Article | Finance area | Year 2021 | |
Women empowerment, attitude toward risk-taking and entrepreneurial intention in the hospitality industryby Chanin Yoopetch | |
International Journal of Culture, Tourism, and Hospitality Research 15(1), p.59-76 |
AbstractPurpose – First, this study aims to investigate the factors affecting entrepreneurial intentions. Second, it
is to identify the influential factors with the highest influence on entrepreneurial intention.
Design/methodology/approach – The sample of the current study was female employees in various
hospitality firms, including restaurants, hotels and wellness services. The questionnaire was developed
based on past research studies and was tested for reliability prior to the full set of data collection. To
represent the early to mid-level career women in hospitality, female employees with at least one-year
experience from hospitality businesses, such as restaurants and hotels, participated in the study and
total usable samples were 416.
Findings – The findings demonstrated that attitude toward risk-taking, self-efficacy, subjective norm and
empowerment is significantly influential to the entrepreneurial intention of the women in the hospitality
industry. Based on the data analysis, attitude toward risk-taking has the highest influence on
entrepreneurial intention. In other words, with a positive attitude toward risk-taking, female employees
showed the greatest tendency to start their own business.
Research limitations/implications – The current study extended the theory of planned behavior in that
it can be used to explain the women’s entrepreneurial intention with subjective norms, attitudes and selfefficacy. The study also highlighted the flexibility of the theory in allowing the researchers to add external
variables to help further investigate the relationships among all the factors in the models.
Practical implications – To highlight the opportunity to promote more equality and diversity in the
business management environments, the results from the study promoted the roles of women
entrepreneurs to support hospitality business development. One of the most influential factors is the
attitude toward risk-taking. This suggested that with the positive attitude toward risk, the respondents
have higher entrepreneurial intentions. Promoting and sharing the success stories of female
entrepreneurs can affect the attitude of female employees and raise their interests toward becoming
entrepreneurs.
Originality/value – The current study provided a unique investigation on the early to mid-level career
hospitality female employees to explore their intention to be entrepreneurs. This research offered the
extension of the theory of planned behavior in the context of entrepreneurship.
Keywords: Entrepreneurial intention, Women empowerment, Financial literacy, Hospitality industry |