Implications of Generic Skills on Innovative Behavior Towards Opportunity Recognition in Youth

Abstract

The high competition in the employment market and high unemployment rate prompted the government to encourage entrepreneurship as a career option for students further. Many entrepreneurship programs and courses have been developed and offered in higher learning institutions to encourage innovative behavior and the ability to recognize opportunities, especially in the emerging digitization world and the high unemployment rate in Malaysia. Generic skills such as creativity, proactiveness, risk-propensity, leadership, motivation, and self-efficacy are said to be essential determinants for innovative behavior. This paper aims to investigate the impact of generic skills on innovative behavior and opportunity recognition empirically. The online survey was conducted on 225 students who took a technology entrepreneurship course at a Malaysian university. Data were then analyzed using Partial Least Square software. Only creativity and proactive have a strong influence on innovative behavior and opportunity recognition. The mixed results implied that more efforts to carry out to enhance further the innovative behavior of students in preparing them to real-world challenges. It is timely to readdress how to improve further and strengthen the generic skills of students. Recommendation and suggestions are presented.