The relationship between an individual\'s risk attitude and the desire to become an entrepreneur

In this research, we study the influence of someone’s risk attitude on his/her desire to become an entrepreneur. This is done by examining the answers given by 150 students to several questions on the topics of risk attitude and entrepreneurial intentions. The method used to conduct these findings is principal component analysis. This combines the multiple questions there are on both risk attitude and entrepreneurial intentions into two new variables, which are then regressed on each other. The results indicated a strong relationship between the two: a one standard deviation increase in risk attitude led to a 0.36 standard deviation increase in entrepreneurial intentions. To add validity to the findings the control variables optimism, age, sex and study field were used. The findings on the influence of risk attitude on entrepreneurial intentions were all significant.