Entrepreneurial self-efficacy and intentions Outcome expectations as mediator and subjective norms as moderator

Purpose Building on social career cognitive theory, the purpose of this paper is to investigate outcome expectations as a mediator and subjective norms as a moderator in the relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and intentions. Design/methodology/approach Using a sample of 1,026 students from US public and private universities retrieved from the Entrepreneurship Education Project, this study tests a first-stage moderated mediation model in a two-step process. Findings Results show that entrepreneurial self-efficacy is positively related to entrepreneurial intentions through the partial mediating effect of entrepreneurial outcome expectations, and that this relationship is consistently significant and positive for individuals with lower, average and higher subjective norms towards entrepreneurship. Originality/value Exploring the combined effect of entrepreneurial outcome expectations as a mechanism and subjective norms as boundary conditions on the relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intentions is an unexplored issue to date, and helps to understand how and why entrepreneurial intentions emerge.