Role of entrepreneurship education, passion and motivation in augmenting Omani students’ entrepreneurial intention: A stimulus-organism-response approach

Drawing upon the stimulus-organism-response (S–O-R) theory, the current study assesses the direct and indirect role of entrepreneurship education (EE) on entrepreneurial intention (EI) among Omani university students via the mediation of entrepreneurial passion (EP) and motivation (EM). Moreover, the study also checks the conditional interaction effect of entrepreneurial resilience (ER) on the indirect paths by applying a moderated-mediation approach. The data were collected from 409 students from three different universities in Oman using a validated questionnaire and tested in AMOS (for direct and indirect effects) and Process Macro for SPSS (for conditional indirect effects). The results confirmed that EE triggers EI not only directly but also indirectly via EP and EM, and the indirect paths get strongest for resilient students (at the high level of ER) and weakest for irresilient students (at the low level of ER). The current study is one of the first to adopt the S–O-R framework in the domain of EE and EI link and substantially contribute to the literature by instrumenting the conditional indirect role of ER in the indirect interplay between EE, EP, EM, and EI. The findings of the study also proffer useful suggestions for policymakers.