Despite the commonly held view that entrepreneurship education and training nurtures future entrepreneurs, little is known about the mechanism through which this intervention impacts on its intended outcomes. The purpose of this study was to test if selected psychological traits (need for achievement, risk-taking propensity, internal locus of control) mediated the predictive relationship between the perceived effects of entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intentions. A cross-sectional survey of a sample of 308 vocational education students in Zimbabwe was used for this purpose. The results show that the effects of entrepreneurship education variable had a positive and statistically significant relationship with need for achievement, risk-taking propensity, internal locus of control and entrepreneurial goal intentions. Moreover, need for achievement, risk-taking propensity and internal locus of control accounted for a statistically significant amount of variance in entrepreneurial intentions. However, of the three psychological traits, only need for achievement partially mediated the relationship between the effects of entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial goal intentions. The outcome has implications on the design and focus of entrepreneurship education programmes.

The study uses the job demands‐resources (JD‐R) theory to examine the effects of work‐related stress, life‐work balance support, and emotional intelligence on the organizational continuance commitment of workers in under‐resourced organizations. Quantitative cross‐sectional survey data were collected from 212 workers at selected independently owned schools in western Zimbabwe. Correlation and multiple‐regression analyses techniques were used to analyze the data. Positive significant relationships were found between all three independent variables (work‐related stress, work‐life balance support and emotional intelligence) and organizational continuance commitment. Hayes’ PROCESS analyses results demonstrated that emotional intelligence significantly moderated the effect of work‐related stress on organizational continuance commitment, and that of work‐life balance support and organizational continuance commitment. The results highlight the importance of factors including work‐related stress, work‐life balance support, and emotional intelligence in efforts to help inadequately resourced entities retain employees.

While definitional clarity of social entrepreneurship as constituting a semblance of economic engagements that straddle entrepreneurial studies, social innovation and not for profit ventures had been established, the antecedents of such entrepreneurship are only beginning to emerge. This study tests moral obligation, empathy, self-efficacy and social support as main determinants of social entrepreneurial intentions in the depressed economy of Zimbabwe, where the pursuit of economic gains at a personal level is anticipated to thrive. The study employed the Mair and Naboa model, a quantitative approach, and survey design to explore the influence of the aforementioned antecedents on the social entrepreneurial intentions of a sample of 284 vocational training college students. Results suggest that only empathy, self-efficacy and social support had statistically significant relationships with social entrepreneurial intentions. Notably, social support had a negative predictive relationship with social entrepreneurial intentions. The outcome of the study partially validates the Mair and Naboa model.

Purpose: Keeping happy and committed workers is an imperative goal for organisations in any field, including higher education. Institutions must, however, have a thorough understanding of the elements that influence various organisational commitment levels before they can develop human resource management guidelines and procedures that work. Hence, by using social exchange theory, this study aimed to investigate the connection between work–life balance (WLB), job satisfaction and organisational commitment among a sample of Zimbabwean higher education institutions. These factors have received relatively minimal attention in academic institutions, particularly in developing nations.Design/methodology/approach: A cross-sectional survey was conducted, using convenience sampling, to examine 224 members of the teaching staff from two universities in western Zimbabwe. The collected data were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling.Findings: The results revealed that WLB significantly predicted job satisfaction. Furthermore, the relationship between WLB and affective and normative commitment was found to be indirect and mediated by job satisfaction.Research limitations/implications: The results of this study suggest that WLB and job satisfaction are crucial factors for higher education institutions that aim to secure their talented faculty's affective and normative commitment. Therefore, universities should implement firm policies and practices that encourage academic staff to maintain a healthy WLB and enhance job satisfaction.Originality/value: The study's main contribution is the development of a conceptual model that contributes to the ongoing scholarly discourse on how to enhance organisational commitment among academic staff in under-resourced higher education institutions, as well as the concomitant implications for human resource policies within these institutions.

The rich body of literature examining the entrepreneurship education-entrepreneurship intention relations tends to neglect the influence of contingent and other mediating factors on the relationship. This elusion creates an erroneous assumption that entrepreneurship intentions are insulated from external influences and the entrepreneurship education-intentions relationship is an automatic, directly linear interaction. Contesting this premise, this research explores the influence of exposure to entrepreneurship education (EE), mediated by precursors (such as attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control) to entrepreneurial intentions on the actual entrepreneurship intentions (EI) of vocational education students at a particular institution in Zimbabwe. Drawing on a cross-sectional research design and 154 randomly selected students, the study examines the extent to which they intended to engage in entrepreneurship careers in the near future. A non-parametric technique, the Spearman correlation test, and regression analysis were employed to test the relationships between EE on the direct determinants of EI, between the immediate determinants of EI and actual EI and to test a number of predictive effects. The results demonstrate that EE had a positive correlation with the direct determinants of EI. In addition, EE predicted all the immediate determinants of EI, except for subjective norms. Lastly, there was no evidence to support a direct predictive effect of EE on EI, controlling for other psychological factors. To a large extent, the results validated the Theory of Planned Behavior as a guiding tool for estimating any premeditated entrepreneurial behavior. Thus, the Theory remains an invaluable theoretical lens for academics, educators and policymakers’ evaluation of effective ways of enhancing the grooming of potential entrepreneurs.

This study sought to determine whether Ajzen’s theory of planned behaviour could be used to predict the intention of selected Zimbabwean business school students towards sustainable entrepreneurship. The study also examined whether the relationships between the predictor variables of the theory of planned behaviour and sustainable entrepreneurial intention were moderated by the respondents’ individualistic value orientations. A positivist worldview and a quantitative cross-sectional survey were used to collect data from 210 business school students who had completed postgraduate entrepreneurship courses at two public universities in the western region of Zimbabwe. The predictors of the hypothetical model explained 49 percent of the variance in respondents’ intentions to pursue sustainable entrepreneurship. Only the attitude toward the behaviour variable had a statistically significant direct impact on sustainable entrepreneurial intention. Subjective norms had an indirect effect on sustainable entrepreneurial intention, which was entirely mediated by attitude toward behaviour. Individualistic values had no statistically significant moderating effect on the relationships between the predictors of intention and the intention to engage in sustainable entrepreneurship. The study’s findings have implications for business schools’ efforts to contribute to the goal of sustainable development. The study contributes to the development of the literature by evaluating the relevance of the theory of planned behaviour to sustainable entrepreneurship.