Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess emotional intelligence levels and their contributions to entrepreneurial career choice behaviours among Malaysian public university students. Design/methodology/approach: This study surveyed 369 respondents selected from a population of 87,503 Malaysian public university students using stratified and simple random sampling techniques. Respondents were given a three-part questionnaire covering their personal information, their emotional intelligence in terms of self-awareness, emotion management, empathy and social skills and their entrepreneurial career choice behaviours. Findings: The results indicate that the surveyed students have high levels of self-awareness and empathy, and moderate levels of emotion management and social skills. This indicates that these students are able to manage their emotions in making decisions and consider people’s emotions. The results also indicate that students who were able to manage their negative emotions were more likely to choose an entrepreneurial career. Research limitations/implications: This study aims to help higher institutions focus on emotional intelligence in the entrepreneurship curriculum to help students recognise their potential in terms of entrepreneurial characteristics and behaviours. Students’ involvement in entrepreneurship can foster economic growth in developing countries. A limitation of this study is that it focuses only on second-year undergraduates from public universities in the Selangor area. Originality/value: Few studies address emotional intelligence and entrepreneurial career choices among public university students, which this study addresses.

This study investigates the moderating effect of students’ programs on entrepreneurship education aimed at pre-start-up and its effect on the students’ behavior. This study also attempts the level of entrepreneurship education and pre-start-up behavior among students. A survey was carried out among 441 final year students, including 214 students from business programs, and 227 students from non-business programs. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS 22 and SmartPLS 3.3.0, to perform descriptive and multi-group analysis (MGA), including assessment of measurement invariance of the composite model (MICOM). The results reveal that all direct relationships were supported. It was also found that student programs do have a moderating effect on the relationship between entrepreneurship education and pre-start-up behavior. Furthermore, the results discovered that risk control is a crucial component of entrepreneurship education and should be highlighted in the curriculum. This study contributes to the literature by considering student programs as a moderator, a comparatively new factor in the pre-start-up behavior among university students at the tertiary level. Therefore, entrepreneurship education must be properly designed, and the co-curriculum must be properly organized, so that entrepreneurship will be the preferred career choice in the future.

Economic development and market changes have led to the need to generate entrepreneurial ideas in order to meet changing customer demands. However, these changes are not seen as opportunities for generating entrepreneurial ideas. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify and determine the most important elements in the process of forming entrepreneurial ideas. Mixed-method research that involved the modified Delphi technique, nominal group technique and interpretive structural modelling was used in this study. At first, a questionnaire was set up for the modified Delphi technique, followed by the nominal group technique and, finally, the interpretive structural modeling was used to determine the most important entrepreneurial ideas and model design. The experts involved in this study were 12 entrepreneurial lecturers from higher institutions. The findings show that evaluating and improving existing ideas is the most important element and should be given priority. Therefore, the findings of this study contribute a piece of valuable information for educators’ practice and for policymakers involved in shaping a more effective entrepreneurship education.

HRMARS is well established journal publisher based in Pakistan. It is publishing prominent journals in social sciences since 2011.

Background: Women entrepreneurs, especially those from the rural areas, often struggle to develop balance between business decisions and their well-being. Objective: To examine the relationship between rural women entrepreneurs’ competence and their quality of life. Methods: A questionnaire survey measuring life competencies and the quality of life was carried out on a group of 152 women entrepreneurs from rural Perak using the purposive sampling technique. The main research method was quantitative using survey design. The collected data were subjected to statistical analysis using frequency, mean, standard deviation and correlation coefficient were used to assess the relationship between entrepreneurial competence and quality of life. Results: Findings showed that rural women entrepreneurs have a higher level of life competencies and achieved a good quality of life. There is a strong relationship between their life competencies and quality of life and similarly, between rural women entrepreneurs’ entrepreneurial skills and spiritual skills and their quality of life. Implication: The applicability of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Spencer and Spencer’s theory is highly proven by the evidence of a relationship between life competencies and rural women entrepreneur’s quality of life. These findings have implications for enhancing the efficiency of rural women entrepreneurs through the implementation of competency development programs.

Tourism Activities and its Impact on Environmental Sustainability in Coastal Areas