Level of Entrepreneurship Competence and Readiness Among Medical Students in A Private University in Shah Alam, Malaysia

Abstract

Entrepreneurial competence are defined as individual characteristic such as knowledge, skills, motives, traits, social roles and self-images that can result in a new creature. Entrepreneurial readiness is defined as a readiness or preparedness of an individual in pursuing the business. Therefore, the aim of the study is to measure the level of entrepreneurial competence and entrepreneurial readiness among the medical students and its association with the sociodemographic factors. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 284 medical students at private university. The data was collected by self-administered questionnaire adopted from previous studies. A total of 95% of the respondents have a high level of entrepreneurial competence. For the entrepreneurial readiness, 17% of the respondents were not ready while 62% need to re-evaluate themselves before starting any entrepreneurial activity. Only 21% of the respondents are ready to start any entrepreneurial activity. The gender, age, family income and involvement in entrepreneurial projects are statistically significant to the level of Entrepreneurial Competence (p=0.01, p<0.001, p<0.001 and p= 0.01 respectively). The family background, marital status, age and involvement in entrepreneurial projects are statistically significant to the level of Entrepreneurial Readiness. (p= 0.02, p=0.01, p=0.01 and p<0.001 respectively). The level of entrepreneurial competence is mostly high among medical students but most of them are not ready or needs a re-evaluation before they could do any entrepreneurial activity. The age and involvement in the entrepreneurial projects were associated with level of the entrepreneurial competence and entrepreneurial readiness.