Education Commons^™

Using Social Cognitive Career Theory To Predict Self-Employment Goals, Gerald Segal, Dan Borgia, Jerry Schoenfeld

New England Journal of Entrepreneurship

Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT; Lent, Brown, and Hackett 1994, 1996) proposes that career interests, goals, and choices are related to self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations. It suggests that people’s self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations with regard to self-employment would predict their goals to become self-employed. This study explores the ability of SCCT to predict goals for self-employment in a sample of 115 undergraduate business students. Results indicated that students with higher entrepreneurial self-efficacy and higher self-employment outcome expectations had higher intentions to become self-employed. These findings imply that educators and policy-makers may boost student entrepreneurial intentions by (1) enhancing …