Entrepreneurial Intentions and Employment Choices among University of Ghana Students: A Discrete Choice Experiment

The study consists of two main components: First, participants who are all students enrolled at the University of Ghana, complete a structured survey module designed to measure entrepreneurial intentions using Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior framework, including items on attitudes toward entrepreneurship, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. Second, participants take part in a discrete choice experiment consisting of ten stated-preference tasks. In each task, respondents are presented with two hypothetical job offers that vary randomly in monthly salary and in selected job attributes. These attributes capture key dimensions that differentiate formal and informal employment in the Ghanaian context, such as income stability, schedule flexibility, access to training, and social protection. Participants indicate their preferred job offer in each task, allowing for the estimation of preferences and willingness-to-pay for specific job characteristics.

2026-01-26

2026-04-03

The primary outcome is to measure students’ entrepreneurial intention using the Theory of Planned Behavior and their stated preference for formal versus informal employment through a discrete choice experiment, and estimate their willingness to pay for key job attributes such as income stability, flexibility, social protection, and training opportunities.

Entrepreneurial intention will be constructed as a composite index based on Theory of Planned Behavior items capturing attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. Employment preferences will be observed through binary choices between formal and informal hypothetical job advertisements in a discrete choice experiment. Willingness to pay (WTP) for each job attribute will be estimated using a probabilistic choice model based on a random utility framework, where WTP is derived from two parameters in the indirect utility function: the individual’s marginal utility of each job attribute and the individual’s marginal utility of the wage.

The second outcome is the role of demographics, cultural and regional background, in shaping students’ entrepreneurial intentions and employment preferences.

The second outcome will be derived by interacting the primary outcome measures with individual characteristics, including age, gender, region of origin, cultural background, and family income. These interactions will allow the study to analyze heterogeneity in entrepreneurial intentions and employment preferences across socio-demographic groups.

In the first section of the survey, participants who are all students enrolled at the University of Ghana are asked to respond to a set of questions on demographic and socio-economic characteristics, including gender, age, ethnicity, region of birth and current region of residence, as well as current employment status and occupation. Additional questions cover academic department/programme, level of study, and year of enrolment, together with an approximate measure of family income to capture socio-economic background. Subsequently, the survey elicits students’ entrepreneurial intentions using Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). This module uses experimentally validated survey questions to capture the three core TPB components, attitudes toward entrepreneurship, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control, which are later combined to construct a composite entrepreneurial intention index.

In the second section, the survey involves ten stated-preference experimental questions. Each of these questions displays a pair of hypothetical job offers, namely COMPANY A and COMPANY B. In each task, the two job offers are described by a set of attributes that characterise both the nature of the job and the conditions under which it is performed, together with an offered monthly salary. The attributes are designed to reflect the key dimensions that differentiate formal and informal employment in the Ghanaian context, including (among others) job security and recognition, schedule flexibility, access to training, social protection/benefits (e.g., health coverage, paid leave, and handling of taxes/social security), wage/payment form (e.g., cash versus bank transfer), and employment procedures (e.g., structured admission versus open access). Each attribute takes on two levels corresponding to a more “informal” versus a more “formal” employment condition. The offered monthly salary is randomly assigned across COMPANY A and COMPANY B within a plausible range, consistent with entry-level earnings for university graduates, to ensure credible trade-offs while eliciting respondents’ preferences over job attributes and formality.

Not available

For each of the ten experimental questions, the salary levels and the values of the varying attributes are randomized using a JavaScript-based algorithm.

Individual

No

There is no cluster

The sample consists of 600 students aged 18 years and older, all enrolled at the University of Ghana. No minors are recruited for the study. Each participant is expected to complete a survey module on entrepreneurial intentions, followed by ten stated-preference experimental choice tasks.

The treatment is identical for all participants.