As part of its strategic vision, Kuwait aims to transform into a knowledge-driven economy; however, the Country faces the burden of structural inefficiencies in its workforce, including the heavy dependence on the public sector’s jobs, disguised employment, and high unemployment rates (United Nations Kuwait, 2021; World Bank, 2017). With the expectation of a labour market saturation in the private sector by 2035 (United Nations, 2015), the challenge is even greater. Entrepreneurship is therefore an essential alternative for diversifying the Kuwaiti economy and creating private-sector jobs in line with the government’s Vision 2035 (Arabian Post, 2017; Government of Kuwait, 2015). Progress has been somewhat limited, although substantial government efforts to ensure meaningful participation by young people in entrepreneurship, foster their awareness of opportunities, and develop their entrepreneurial capabilities are essential. The current study explores entrepreneurial alertness in Kuwait's higher education through a social cognitive theory (SCT) lens (Bandura, 1986), examining how various variables affect students’ alertness. Such exploration aims to understand the cognitive capability system (personal factor) through which students’ alertness to opportunities increases, and they eventually consider owning and operating business ventures.
The study initially conducted an extensive review of more than 75 articles on entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial alertness, and entrepreneurial education and, through interview refinement, identified five main factors believed to influence alertness. These are pattern recognition, entrepreneurial motivation, collaboration, fear of failure, and self-efficacy. Based on the above findings, a structured questionnaire was developed and refined through face-to-face interviews with 12 nascent entrepreneurs who have been running their businesses for up to 5 years. The survey questionnaire was distributed online to students at two public and two private universities in Kuwait. Data were collected from 372 students and analysed using Exploratory Factor Analysis, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Composite Reliability, Average Variance Extracted, Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), and bootstrapped indirect effects to investigate mediation.
Findings indicate that the examined personal (cognitive, motivational) and environmental constructs) are primary antecedents of entrepreneurial alertness, as pattern recognition, entrepreneurial motivation, and collaboration each had a significant positive impact on alertness, further supporting the importance of social interaction as a context for opportunity-focused cognition. The findings also suggested that although entrepreneurial alertness had an insignificant direct effect on entrepreneurial intention, its effect became significant through the mediating effect of self-efficacy. Furthermore, fear of failure significantly strengthened the relationship between entrepreneurial alertness and entrepreneurial intention, indicating that individuals with heightened fear of failure exhibit a stronger association between alertness and intention. Collectively, these findings provide important insights into the interplay among personal (cognitive), motivational, and environmental factors in shaping entrepreneurial alertness and intention. Such findings contribute to the entrepreneurship literature by theorising the integration of the mental capability perspective with social-cognitive in the Kuwaiti education context, and have practical implications for education policymakers, universities, and entrepreneurship support programs.
