The Impact of Entrepreneurial Education on Entrepreneurial Intention During the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Empirical Study from Pakistan

This study aimed to find the mediating impact of entrepreneurial education during COVID-19 on entrepreneurial intention among university students from major cities of Pakistan. Majority of businesses shifted to online from offline mode as a result of COVID-19 pandemic. This created a great opportunity for university students to become entrepreneurs without much investment during COVID-19. Primary data for this study was collected with the help of an adopted questionnaire from previous studies. An online survey was considered appropriate due to the COVID-19 situation in the country. The number of data samples collected from the major cities of Pakistan was 460. The research hypothesis was tested with the help of SmartPLS by using least square structural equation modeling. Findings revealed there is full mediation of entrepreneurial education during COVID-19 between the self-efficacy, subjective norms, and attitude towards entrepreneurship for entrepreneurial intention during COVID-19 among university students. Therefore, the research confirmed the application of the theory of planned behavior among university students in Pakistan with regards to factors such as self-efficacy, subjective norms, attitude towards entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial intention. The present study also concludes that all students regardless of their area of study such as Business and Engineering look forward to become entrepreneurs during COVID-19. The students opting for entrepreneurship had either formal or informal entrepreneurial education during COVID-19.