Student self-employment in South Africa: a triple-helix-model, entrepreneurial competence and social support perspective

Getting graduates employed has become a daunting task for most parts of the world. This reality has made progressive economies use student self-employment as a strategy to fight unemployment. South Africa has struggled to capitalise on student self-employment due to a lower supportive environment for entrepreneurship. Consequently, this has drawn interest in understanding the role of the triple helix model and social support towards student self-employment. It is against this backdrop that the current study aimed to develop a multi-tiered student self-employment ecosystem model through evaluating student perceptions of university initiatives, entrepreneurial competence, industry support, government support and social support towards student self-employment; measuring the effect of university initiatives on student self-employment; measuring the effect of social support on entrepreneurial competence; establishing the mediation effect of entrepreneurial competence, industry support and government support on the relationship between university initiatives and student self-employment; and investigating the moderated mediation effect of social support on the relationship between university initiatives and student self-employment through entrepreneurial competence, industry support and government support in South Africa. A positivist research paradigm was applied through the use of a quantitative descriptive research methodology. Data were collected through a questionnaire from a convenience sample of 375 self-employed South African university students. SmartPLS 4 was used to analyse data through descriptive analysis, structural equation modelling, mediation and moderation analyses. The study concluded that students had low perceptions of university initiatives, industry support, and government support, while they had moderate perceptions of entrepreneurial competence and social support towards student self-employment; university initiatives did not have a statistically significant effect on student self-employment in the presence of mediators (entrepreneurial competence, industry support and government support); social support had a statistically significant positive effect on entrepreneurial competence; entrepreneurial competence (interpersonal generic competence), industry support and government fully mediates the relationship between university initiatives and student self-employment; and social support did not have a statistically significant moderated mediation effect on the relationship between university initiatives and student self-employment through entrepreneurial competence, industry support and government support in South Africa. This has major implications for theory and practice leading to the development of the student self-employment ecosystem model.