Educational Capabilities, Opportunity Recognition and Entrepreneurial Intention : A Higher Education-Based Analytical Framework

Abstract

This paper asks how entrepreneurial education, entrepreneurial capabilities, and perceived opportunity work together to shape students' entrepreneurial intention (EI), and it looks specifically at whether attitude toward entrepreneurship (ATE), subjective norms (SN), and perceived behavioral control (PBC) carry that influence through. Data were gathered via questionnaire from 350 postgraduate students at universities in Iraq, and the resulting quantitative dataset was tested against the proposed hypotheses using structural equation modeling. ATE and PBC turned out to be the channels through which the main predictors reach EI, while SN's mediating role was not statistically significant. Practically, the findings point toward entrepreneurship -focused educational programming that builds students' knowledge, skills, and readiness to launch and run ventures. Where prior work has largely stopped short of examining ATE, SN, and PBC together as joint mediators, this study fills that gap by folding all three into the pathway connecting entrepreneurial education, capabilities, and perceived opportunity to entrepreneurial intention.