Factors Affecting Entrepreneurial Intention and Behavior among the Indigenous Farming Community in Bun-ayan, Sabangan, Mountain Province, Philippines

Abstract

With the shift of direction of the Philippine economy towards being an agribusiness-driven sector from agricultural farming, the indigenous peoples were encouraged to engage in entrepreneurship that would improve their socioeconomic status and bring development to their communities. The study assessed the factors affecting the entrepreneurial intention and behavior among the indigenous farmers in Bun-ayan, Sabangan, Mountain Province, by means of analyzing the entrepreneurial indicators and predictors through correlation and multiple regression analysis among 74 indigenous farmers. Among all the entrepreneurship predictors in this research, age, educational attainment, years in farming, the occupation of the father and mother, entrepreneurial inclination, entrepreneurial role model, entrepreneurial education, personal attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control were significantly related to entrepreneurial intention. Among the significant variables extracted from the correlation analysis, the factors affecting entrepreneurial intention and behavior are age, father’s occupation, and entrepreneurial inclination. Furthermore, this study conclude that sociodemographic factors and entrepreneurial inclination are enough to determine the intention of the indigenous farmers to engage themselves in entrepreneurial activities for the theory of planned behavior becomes insignificant when other predictors are incorporated with it. Thus, though there is evidence of a high level of entrepreneurial intentions among the indigenous farming community, challenges pertinent to culture preservation vis-à-vis its capacity to translate such intention into entrepreneurial behavior need to be addressed.