The Place of Residence as a Contextual Dimension of Entrepreneurial Orientation - a Study

Growth and diversification of an economy largely depends on the emergence of new generation entrepreneurs. An individual's entrepreneurial orientation can be judged on the basis of entrepreneurial competencies like resourcefulness, foresight, risk-orientation, perseverance and autonomy. These are significantly influenced by the socio-demographic factors like gender, family occupation and financial status, and exposure to entrepreneurial business through the place of residence and even to some extent, the entrepreneurial role models. The principal aim of this research is to identify the impact of the place of residence on the skill of entrepreneurial foresight in specific and entrepreneurial orientation in general. A sample of 200 final year postgraduate management students were selected randomly and data were collected through a schedule of four statements to be ranked on Likert scale. The statistical techniques of ANOVA and multiple comparisons were applied with the help of SPSS-20. The findings confirm opinions expressed in the literature reviewed here, that the place of residence helps gain exposure to entrepreneurial activities and thus help forming entrepreneurial orientations among the youth. The respondents belonging to urban and semi-urban residential locations show a more focused preference for entrepreneurial orientation than those hailing from metropolitan cities.