ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Personality and Social Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1664105
This article is part of the Research TopicSocial Psychological Perspectives on Threat: Understanding Climate, Economic, and Health ThreatsView all 10 articles
The Role of Locus of Control in Shaping Graduates' Entrepreneurial Intentions: The Mediating Role of Self-Efficacy
Provisionally accepted
Bereket Merkine Gebresilase1*
Zebdewos Zekarias Elka2zhang chuanxia1Esayas Teshome Taddese3Yohannes Bisa Biramo2Phawani Vijayaratnam3- 1Shandong Xiehe University, Jinan, China
- 2Wolaita Sodo University, Sodo, Ethiopia
- 3INTI International University, Nilai, Malaysia
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Entrepreneurship is a crucial driver of economic development in countries like Ethiopia, where high graduate unemployment and limited government job opportunities present ongoing challenges. However, little research has examined how self-efficacy mediates the relationship between internal and external locus of control and graduates' entrepreneurial intentions. This study aimed to investigate these relationships among graduating students. Data were collected from 455 final-year students ("Mage = 20.40", SD = 2.52), of whom 280 (61.5%) were male and 175 (38.5%) were female.The results indicated that an internal locus of control was positively associated with graduates' entrepreneurial intentions, whereas an external locus of control was negatively related to entrepreneurial intention. In addition, self-efficacy showed a significant positive correlation with graduates' entrepreneurial intention. Structural equation modeling further revealed that self-efficacy partially mediates the relationship between both internal and external locus of control and entrepreneurial intention.These findings underscore the importance of strengthening students' sense of personal control and self-efficacy to enhance their motivation and capacity to pursue entrepreneurship.
Keywords: Social entrepreneurship, Locus of Control, self-efficacy, Unemployment, Ethiopia
Received: 11 Jul 2025; Accepted: 02 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Gebresilase, Elka, chuanxia, Taddese, Biramo and Vijayaratnam. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Bereket Merkine Gebresilase, Shandong Xiehe University, Jinan, China
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