How does psychological capital shape entrepreneurial intention? The mediating role of opportunity recognition

1 Introduction

The creation of new ventures has long been linked to the formation of new industries, employment creation and both economic and social development (Wang and Fu, 2023). The decision to start new ventures remains a largely intentional one, as it involves planned and deliberate actions rather than spontaneous ones (Krueger et al., 2000). Entrepreneurial intention (EI), or an individual's commitment to starting a new business, has been identified as a critical predictor of new venture creation (Krueger et al., 2000; Newman et al., 2014). Understanding how EIs are formed, and the mechanisms behind their formation, is therefore of critical concern to both entrepreneurship scholars and policymakers (Zhang et al., 2014). From an organizational psychology perspective, EI constitutes a distinct form of occupational and career decision-making shaping how individuals participate in the labor market (Liñán and Fayolle, 2015; Marshall and Gigliotti, 2020). For students transitioning out of education, the choice between self-employment and paid employment is one of the first major work-participation decisions they face, making the psychological antecedents of this choice directly relevant to the study of work motivation during the school-to-work transition (Savickas, 2011).

Despite ongoing calls in the literature to take into account the different profiles of individuals with respect to EI formation (Von Graevenitz et al., 2010), most studies have focused on university-level students (García-Rodríguez et al., 2016; Maresch et al., 2016), with sparse attention devoted to students enrolled in vocational training programs in emerging economies like China (Galvão et al., 2018; LaVelle and Donaldson, 2021). As China transitions toward an innovation-driven, skills-based economy, vocational education is becoming increasingly important for cultivating technically skilled, adaptable talent aligned with rapidly evolving labor market needs (Zhao and Selvaratnam, 2024). Due to its emphasis on practical skills, workforce readiness, and employability, vocational education may possibly provide a foundation for both employment and entrepreneurial development (Xiong, 2011; Yu et al., 2025). Therefore, examining the psychological drivers of EI in such a population is not only an important question for entrepreneurship scholars but also for scholars on work-participation. Such a question can deepen our understanding of how and why vocational graduates decide between choosing waged employment or self-employment, and the psychological resources that enable their active, agentic participation in work more broadly (Cai and Kong, 2017; Kanfer et al., 2017; Zhang et al., 2014).

Numerous studies have identified factors such as entrepreneurial personality traits, specific entrepreneurial competencies and cognitions (Obschonka et al., 2010; Wu et al., 2022), entrepreneurship education and structural support (Turker and Sonmez Selçuk, 2009), institutional environments (Mustafa et al., 2025), role models (Nowiński and Haddoud, 2019), gender (Díaz-García and Jiménez-Moreno, 2010) and education level (Liñán et al., 2011) as critical antecedents of EI. Surprisingly, comparatively little is known about how and when personal psychological resources shape EI, and through which cognitive pathways this occurs (Loi et al., 2025; Liñán et al., 2011; Narmaditya et al., 2026). Such knowledge may be valuable in providing unique insights into how and why Chinese vocational students are able to form EI under challenging circumstances.

Traditionally, EI models have commonly been examined through theoretical frameworks such as the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1991; Liñán and Chen, 2009) and Social Cognitive Career Theory (Lent and Brown, 2013). While such approaches are well-suited to explaining the proximal, motivational factors of intention formation, they nevertheless offer little insight into why some individuals, prior to any deliberate evaluation of entrepreneurship as a career option, are better positioned than others to notice and interpret entrepreneurial possibilities in the first place. In contrast, this study draws on the resource-based theory of entrepreneurship (Alvarez and Busenitz, 2001) as a means of explaining an earlier, resource-driven stage of the same process. The resource-based theory of entrepreneurship (Alvarez and Busenitz, 2001; Barney, 1991) postulates that individual-level specific resources can help facilitate the assembling of resources necessary for new venture creation (Alvarez and Busenitz, 2001). Psychological capital (PsyCap) (Luthans and Youssef, 2017) represents one such personal resource which can shape how individuals respond to challenges and pursue opportunities essential to entrepreneurship (Newman et al., 2014; Welter and Scrimpshire, 2021). Consisting of “a combination of self-efficacy, optimism, hope, and resilience” (Baron et al., 2016, p. 742), PsyCap is defined as an “individual's positive psychological state of development” (Luthans et al., 2006, p. 388). Currently, prior research has focused on examining the effects of the individual components of PsyCap on EI (Chevalier et al., 2022; Choi et al., 2024; Ephrem et al., 2021). However, a growing body of research has called for examining PsyCap as an integrated, higher-order resource rather than through its individual components in isolation (Welter and Scrimpshire, 2021), given the possible synergetic effects associated with its individual components (Loi et al., 2025). As such, this particular study focuses on PsyCap as a higher-order construct and examines its effects on EI and the underlying mechanisms through which this relationship occurs.

As an intangible, person-specific resource that enables individuals to bear uncertainty and pursue entrepreneurial possibilities (Karami et al., 2023), PsyCap has been found to influence the entrepreneurial process through shaping the entrepreneurial cognitive process (Loi et al., 2025; Montiel-Campos, 2019; Welter and Scrimpshire, 2021). One particular cognitive process central to entrepreneurship is entrepreneurial opportunity recognition (Baron, 2006; Karami et al., 2023), referring to the process of remaining alert to, actively searching for, and identifying potential business opportunities (Kuckertz et al., 2017). entrepreneurial opportunity recognition has been found to be not only enhanced by PsyCap (Loi et al., 2025), but also to enable the formation of EIs (Bapoo et al., 2022; Hassan et al., 2020). Drawing on the resource-based theory of entrepreneurship (Alvarez and Busenitz, 2001), this study proposes opportunity recognition as the cognitive process through which the entrepreneurial advantage and intentions embodied in PsyCap are realized (Welter and Scrimpshire, 2021).

Research has also acknowledged that the effects of PsyCap on entrepreneurial activity may not be uniform across individuals (Villanueva-Flores et al., 2021; Huang et al., 2026) and may vary based on individual-level factors (Loi et al., 2025). Despite recent calls in the literature to better understand the conditions under which PsyCap shapes entrepreneurial processes, few studies to date have examined how individual-level factors may shape such processes (Loi et al., 2025). To address such a gap in our knowledge, this study draws on the notion of psychological ownership of entrepreneurial ideas (Baer and Brown, 2012; Yttermyr and Wennberg, 2022) as an individual-level factor which may condition the PsyCap-opportunity recognition EI relationship. As a target-specific cognitive–affective state characterized by possessiveness, responsibility, and personal investment, psychological ownership captures an individual's feeling that an object is “mine” (Pierce et al., 2001; Van Dyne and Pierce, 2004). Grounded in the theory of the extended self (Belk, 1988), ownership feelings can make a target feel as part of one's extended self (Belk, 1988), thereby motivating individuals to either protect, enhance, and/or invest resources in what they perceive as “mine” (Zhang et al., 2021). Such a notion suggests that an individual's psychological ownership toward entrepreneurial ideas can shape how their PsyCap is channeled toward opportunity recognition and ultimately EIs (Hamrick et al., 2024; Gray et al., 2020; Baer and Brown, 2012). To date, and to the best of our knowledge, no study has explicitly investigated whether psychological ownership moderates the relationship between PsyCap and EI.

In line with the above gaps in our understanding, this study seeks to address the following research questions:

RQ1: Does opportunity recognition mediate the relationship between psychological capital and entrepreneurial intention? and

RQ2: Does psychological ownership of entrepreneurial ideas moderate the mediating effect of opportunity recognition in the relationship between psychological capital and entrepreneurial intention.

We test our proposed model using two-wave data collected from 185 vocational college students in China. Our study contributes to existing literature in several ways. First, it responds to recent calls to examine PsyCap as an integrated, multidimensional resource across the entrepreneurial process rather than through its components in isolation (Loi et al., 2025; Welter and Scrimpshire, 2021). Second, we demonstrate opportunity recognition as the mechanism connecting this resource to intention within the resource-based theory of entrepreneurship (Alvarez and Busenitz, 2001; Karami et al., 2023). Third, drawing on the extended self-perspective (Belk, 1988; Pierce et al., 2001), we demonstrate psychological ownership of entrepreneurial ideas as a novel boundary condition in the PsyCap—opportunity recognition process. Finally, our study extends entrepreneurial-intention research to Chinese vocational students during the transition from education to work, an economically important yet under-examined population in the work-motivation literature (Galvão et al., 2018). By examining the psychological resources and boundary conditions that shape whether vocational students orient toward self-employment, this study also contributes to organizational psychology's broader concern with how individuals form motivation for, and participate in, work during a critical career-entry period (Kanfer et al., 2017).

2 Literature review

2.1 Entrepreneurial intentions among Chinese vocational education students

Individual cognitions and actions have consistently been identified as playing a central role in one's decision to start a new venture (Schlaegel and Koenig, 2014). Intentions represent a motivational factor influencing one's behaviors and indicate the amount of effort one plans to exert in order to exhibit a specific behavior (Ajzen, 1991; Bird, 1988). In situations where behavior is considered difficult to observe or involves unpredictable lag times (Krueger et al., 2000), intentions are often regarded as one of “the best single predictors of an individual's behavior” (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1977, p. 369). As a process which is highly planned, conscious, and voluntary, the decision to create a new venture requires a high degree of intentionality (Bird, 1988; Krueger et al., 2000). This study defines entrepreneurial intentions (EI) as an individual's psychological tendency to carry out entrepreneurial activities (Niu et al., 2022). EIs have consistently been acknowledged as crucial in forming the first of a series of actions necessary for organizational founding (Fayolle et al., 2006; Liñán and Chen, 2009). Such notions are supported by a growing body of longitudinal research confirming EI as a predictor of new venture creation (Shepherd et al., 2021; Meoli et al., 2020; Belchior and Lyons, 2021).

Research on EI has focused mostly on the experiences of university-level students (Liñán and Fayolle, 2015) with considerably less attention being devoted to students with differing abilities and needs, such as those in vocational education programs (Batista-Canino et al., 2024; Liu et al., 2022; Galvão et al., 2018). This study focuses on students in vocational programs in China (LaVelle and Donaldson, 2021). Within China's higher education system, students fall into two categories: general higher education or vocational education (Xue and Li, 2022). Due to the application-oriented nature of vocational education, students in such education may be more inclined to create a new venture than students in general higher education (Mahmood et al., 2018), as their education may equip them with the practical operational abilities necessary for entrepreneurship and a mindset that encourages them to actively change their circumstances (Younis et al., 2020). However, a recent study into Chinese college students showed that only 3% were willing to choose entrepreneurship as a career (Jiang et al., 2022). Despite favorable government policies and support, difficulties and uncertainties associated with the entrepreneurial process, high failure rates of Chinese start-ups (Svotwa et al., 2022), along with a lack of entrepreneurial knowledge and exposure to role models among vocational education students (Wach and Bilan, 2021), have been attributed to such a phenomenon (Niu et al., 2022).

Vocational and non-vocational students in China may differ in the type and accessibility of entrepreneurial opportunities available to them (Mahmood et al., 2018). For example, vocational based curricula tends to emphasize applied, occupation-specific skills tied to existing industry practice, which is likely to expose students to a narrower but more immediately actionable set of venture opportunities within their trained field (Xiong, 2011). In contrast, university students typically have access to broader formal entrepreneurship programs, campus incubators, alumni and investor networks, and interdisciplinary exposure which are likely to create opportunities beyond a single occupational domain (Galvão et al., 2018; Liñán and Fayolle, 2015). In light of such findings, prior research has highlighted the importance of psychological and entrepreneurial capabilities in helping Chinese vocational students form their EI under challenging circumstances and with little prior entrepreneurship education, knowledge and exposure (Guo et al., 2022; Renko et al., 2021). Accordingly, to better understand how Chinese vocational students' psychological capabilities help in forming their EI, this study focuses on the role of PsyCap (Youssef and Luthans, 2007).

2.2 Psychological capital (PsyCap)

Originating from the domain of positive psychology (Luthans, 2012), PsyCap represents an individual motivational propensity to succeed, comprising hope, optimism, self-efficacy, and resilience (Youssef and Luthans, 2007). Self-efficacy refers to beliefs in one's capabilities (Bandura, 2000) in mobilizing the motivation, cognitive resources and courses of action needed to successfully perform a specific task (Dissanayake, 2014). Hope, one's will to succeed in concert with the aptitude to recognize, clarify, and pursue the way to success (Snyder, 2000). Optimism refers to the extent to which one makes positive designations about current and future success (Youssef and Luthans, 2007). Finally, resilience refers to the extent to which one is able to bounce back from negative experiences and failure and adapt to changing and stressful life events (Luthans, 2002). A large body of scholarship has found a positive association between the individual components of PsyCap and a range of entrepreneurial outcomes (Loi et al., 2025; Ephrem et al., 2019; Acharya and Berry, 2023). Welter and Scrimpshire (2021) recently called for entrepreneurship research to examine PsyCap as an integrated, higher-order resource rather than through its individual components in isolation. In line with such suggestion, this study conceptualizes PsyCap as a reflective higher-order construct rather than a formative one. Our approach is consistent with prior findings showing that the four dimensions of PsyCap reflect a common higher-order latent trait (Dudasova et al., 2021; Luthans et al., 2007a).

Although self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience are conceptually distinct, they nevertheless share an underlying process oriented toward striving for and succeeding at goals. Consequently, their combination constitutes a core, which is greater than the sum of its parts (Welter and Scrimpshire, 2021; Youssef and Luthans, 2007). Empirical evidence supports this notion with findings indicating PsyCap as a whole as a better predictor of attitudinal, behavioral, and performance outcomes than its individual components (Avey et al., 2011; Huang et al., 2026). Hence, this study conceptualizes PsyCap as a higher-order factor underpinned by its four components (Dudasova et al., 2021; Luthans et al., 2007a).

The resource-based view of the firm postulates that sustained competitive advantages are derived from an organization's internal bundle of resources rather than its market position, provided such resources are valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable, and non-substitutable (Barney, 1991). Building on such notions, Alvarez and Busenitz (2001) argued that individuals can possess individual-specific resources which facilitate the recognition of new opportunities and the assembling of resources necessary for new venture creation. Such resources constitute a distinctive source of entrepreneurial advantage for individuals, as such cognitive assets are socially complex and difficult to imitate (Alvarez and Busenitz, 2001). In line with the resource-based view of entrepreneurship (Alvarez and Busenitz, 2001), PsyCap is conceptualized as a valuable, person-specific, and intangible personal resource which enables individuals to build a better future and pursue entrepreneurial possibilities that others may overlook (Karami et al., 2023; Baluku et al., 2020; Villanueva-Flores et al., 2021).

Although the resource-based view was originally developed to explain sustained competitive advantage at the firm level (Barney, 1991), a growing body of entrepreneurship literature has also extended its application to explore the role of individual-level psychological resources in shaping entrepreneurial process (De Carolis and Saparito, 2006; Alvarez and Busenitz, 2001). Alvarez and Busenitz (2001) suggested that given both organizations and individuals face the structurally similar problem of leveraging scarce, valuable resources under uncertainty, the same criteria that can explain firm-level advantages is also applicable to explaining why some individuals, and not others, are able to convert personal resources into recognized opportunities. Accordingly, such an individual-level extension of resource-based view has also been applied to entrepreneurial-cognition research more broadly (De Carolis and Saparito, 2006).

2.3 Hypothesis development

2.3.1 Psychological capital (PsyCap) and entrepreneurial intentions (EI)

As a constructive mental state, PsyCap represents a positive psychological state of development along with motivational propensity to succeed (Huang and Luthans, 2015). Numerous studies have established a positive association between the individual components of PsyCap and EI (Loi et al., 2025). For instance, highly self-efficacious individuals have been found to have greater confidence in their capacity to address challenging tasks and commit the required effort for entrepreneurial activities (Luthans and Youssef, 2017; Esfandiar et al., 2019). Villanueva-Flores et al. (2021) found that optimistic individuals are more likely to pursue entrepreneurship as they are more likely to cope with obstacles and challenging situations encountered in establishing a new venture. Similarly, hopeful individuals are more inclined to investigate a variety of strategies to achieve their goals, increasing their probability of becoming an entrepreneur (Luthans et al., 2007a). Finally, highly resilient individuals are better equipped to address challenges and find effective solutions (Bullough et al., 2014) to achieve success in adverse conditions (Steinbrink and Ströhle, 2024). Additionally, research has shown that the synergistic effects of PsyCap may be greater than the sum of the parts when it comes to shaping EI (Sebora and Tantiukoskula, 2011).

The resource-based theory of entrepreneurship (Alvarez and Busenitz, 2001) may help explain how the synergistic effects of PsyCap shape EI. Sirmon et al. (2007) suggested that the mere ownership of specific resources alone may not be sufficient in generating an advantage, but instead their active bundling and deployment. As a valuable, rare, and difficult-to-imitate personal resource, PsyCap can enable students to translate entrepreneurial ideas into a firm intention to act (Baluku et al., 2016; Luthans and Youssef, 2017). Moreover, the resource-based perspective of entrepreneurship (Alvarez and Busenitz, 2001) suggests that when external resources are constrained, personal resources such as PsyCap are likely to become more decisive in determining whether EI is formed and sustained (Fayolle et al., 2014). The above argumentation is supported by prior findings establishing a positive association between students with higher PsyCap and EI (Salavou et al., 2023; Chevalier et al., 2022; Maslakci and Sürücü, 2021). Based on the above notion, we propose that vocational students in China with higher PsyCap will be motivated and committed to turning their entrepreneurial ideas into an intention to start a new venture. Thus, we propose the following hypothesis:

H1: Psychological capital is positively associated with entrepreneurial intention among vocational students in China.

2.3.2 The mediating role of entrepreneurial opportunity recognition

Entrepreneurial opportunities refer to favorable conditions that encourage entrepreneurial activity and are said to arise from changes in the environment where an individual is situated (Mary George et al., 2016). Entrepreneurial opportunities arise from disequilibria in the environment, which create exploitable gaps for those attentive enough to notice them (Casson, 2005; Cohen and Winn, 2007; Saemundsson and Holmén, 2011). However, the mere existence of favorable circumstances in the environment may not necessarily be related to entrepreneurial activity until it is recognized by an individual (Krueger Jr and Dickson, 1994; Shane, 2003). This study focuses on opportunity recognition or an individual's efforts in searching for and identifying opportunities (Guo et al., 2017; Kuckertz et al., 2017). It is suggested that recognizing opportunities involves staying alert to potential business chances, proactively searching for them, and gathering information about new ideas for products or services. Opportunities recognition functions thus as a cognitive mechanism through which environmental circumstances are converted into a personally meaningful business idea (Okudan and Rzasa, 2006; Santos et al., 2016).

Opportunity recognition remains a demanding cognitive task requiring individuals to draw on their personal resources when interpreting an ambiguous environment (Read et al., 2009). The relevance of PsyCap in the process of opportunity recognition has been well highlighted by the existing literature (Loi et al., 2025; Welter and Scrimpshire, 2021). For instance, self-efficacy has been associated with opportunity identification (Krueger Jr and Dickson, 1994; Niu et al., 2022), and optimistic individuals have been found to be more likely to expect favorable outcomes even from unexpected events (Sarasvathy, 2001; Lupşa et al., 2020). Additionally, hope can encourage individuals to imagine and pursue routes toward a goal when the obvious path is uncertain or blocked (Baron et al., 2016; Hmieleski et al., 2015), while resilience has been found to enable individuals to persist in the search for opportunity despite the setbacks that uncertain environments provide (Hmieleski et al., 2015). Moreover, evidence also points to the importance of the synergistic effects associated with PsyCap, with both Montiel-Campos (2019) and Karami et al. (2023) finding PsyCap as a whole to positively influence opportunity recognition and alertness in individuals. From a resource-based perspective of entrepreneurship (Barney, 1991; Alvarez and Busenitz, 2001), we propose that PsyCap positively influences vocational education students in China opportunity recognition by providing them with the confidence to search out and act on unfamiliar circumstances, the positive outlook to interpret ambiguous signals as promising rather than as reasons to disengage, the motivation to pursue and elaborate on early-stage ideas, and the persistence to continue that search even when initial attempts do not immediately yield results (Luthans and Youssef, 2004; Luthans et al., 2007a; Baron et al., 2016; Hmieleski et al., 2015).

Perceptions of opportunities are likely to intensify the intentions and the energy one directs toward new venture creation (Krueger et al., 2000; Edelman and Yli–Renko, 2010). Given that opportunity recognition and EI are closely and sequentially related (Bird, 1988), individuals who perceive entrepreneurial opportunities as desirable and feasible will be more likely to form the intention to act on them (Bhave, 1994). Such a notion is particularly relevant to Chinese students in vocational education who are likely to enter entrepreneurship with comparatively limited financial and social capital relative to their peers at research-oriented universities (Peng et al., 2024). Accordingly, such students may need to rely more heavily on their own psychological resources to recognize entrepreneurial opportunities (Krueger and Carsrud, 1993; Boyd and Vozikis, 1994). Consistent with the resource-based view of entrepreneurship (Alvarez and Busenitz, 2001), we propose that PsyCap influences students' EI by first equipping students to notice and interpret opportunities within their own environment. Students who are able to recognize entrepreneurial opportunities will thus be more likely to develop firmer intentions to pursue entrepreneurship as a career. Based on the above argumentation, we propose the following hypothesis:

H2: Entrepreneurial opportunity recognition mediates the relationship between psychological capital and entrepreneurial intentions among vocational students in China.

2.3.3 The moderating role of psychological ownership of ideas

The theory of the extended self (Belk, 1988) suggests that when individuals experience feelings of possession toward a particular object, they are likely to incorporate that object into their self-concept (Belk, 1988). Such feelings are identity-relevant and can motivate individuals to preserve and protect the owned object, as threats to the object can be perceived as threats to the self (Belk, 1988; Dawkins et al., 2017). Research has shown such ownership feelings to develop through investment of time and effort, perceived control and intimate knowledge over the object (Brown et al., 2014; Jo et al., 2023). Developed from the extended self-theory, Pierce et al. (2001, p. 299) defined psychological ownership as “a state in which individuals feel as though the target of ownership is theirs.” Feelings of psychological ownership address the question “What do I feel is mine?” (Pierce et al., 2001, p. 305) and fulfill basic needs for efficacy, self-identity and belongingness (Pierce et al., 2001; Dawkins et al., 2017). Feelings of ownership have been found to develop toward various tangible and intangible objects, such as an organization, one's job or their work team or ideas (Ramos et al., 2014; Van Dyne and Pierce, 2004; Baer and Brown, 2012; Gray et al., 2020; Pierce et al., 2003). This study focuses on psychological ownership toward entrepreneurial ideas (Baer and Brown, 2012).

When an object, like an entrepreneurial idea, becomes a considerable part of oneself, individuals with high ownership feelings are likely to be motivated to engage in behaviors to either nurture, advance, or protect the object (Brown et al., 2005; Dawkins et al., 2017). We propose that once an idea has been incorporated into the self, the PsyCap that the individual utilizes toward entrepreneurial activity (Luthans et al., 2007b) is unlikely to be deployed neutrally across the environment (Ramos et al., 2014; Van Dyne and Pierce, 2004). This suggests that psychological ownership toward entrepreneurial ideas may condition the translation of PsyCap into opportunity recognition.

We propose such a conditioning effect at the PsyCap-opportunity recognition path, rather than the opportunity recognition-EI path or the direct PsyCap-EI path for two main reasons. Firstly, by the time an opportunity has been recognized, the decision to pursue it remains concerning feasibility and desirability judgements (Krueger et al., 2000) rather than attachment to the idea that produced it. Secondly, PsyCap is a generalized resource with no idea-specific content for psychological ownership, itself a target-specific construct (Pierce et al., 2001), to act upon along a direct path. Opportunity recognition, in contrast, can be considered as largely a resource-allocation problem, requiring the effortful direction of cognitive resources toward scanning and interpreting ambiguous cues (Gaglio and Katz, 2001). Therefore, consistent with the resource investment logic (Hobfoll, 1989), individuals are likely to direct psychological resources more intensively toward ideas that carry personal significance, with psychological ownership providing such significance and channeling PsyCap toward the recognition of related opportunities. Thus, we postulate that psychological ownership toward entrepreneurial ideas is likely to condition the PsyCap-opportunity recognition relationship in two different ways.

On the one hand, psychological ownership of entrepreneurial ideas can strengthen the PsyCap-opportunity recognition relationship. The resource-based view of entrepreneurship (Alvarez and Busenitz, 2001) further suggests that valuable resources generate advantages when they are actively bundled and leveraged toward a specific means (Barney, 1991; Sirmon et al., 2007). Hence, we propose that individuals who are confident, optimistic, hopeful, and resilient, and who also feel a strong identity-level stake with an entrepreneurial idea, will be more motivated to invest intensively in developing and extending them. Our argumentation here is supported by evidence showing psychological ownership functioning as a boundary condition that shapes how contextual factors are translated into innovative outcomes (Liu et al., 2019), increasing entrepreneurs' persistence (Zhu et al., 2018), predicting renewed entrepreneurial intentions after venture (Hsu, 2013), and being positively associated with entrepreneurial self-efficacy (Hamrick et al., 2024).

On the other hand, psychological ownership of entrepreneurial ideas may act to weaken the PsyCap-opportunity recognition relationship. Gaglio and Katz (2001) described opportunity recognition as an exploratory and divergent cognitive process, which requires alertness to novel patterns and openness to interpretations of one's environment. The extended-self theory (Belk, 1988) of psychological ownership suggests that once entrepreneurial ideas become part of one's extended self, individuals may become motivated to protect the coherence of that self-extension, which may direct effect psychological resources toward defending the existing idea rather than searching for entrepreneurial opportunities. Evidence of this can be found in the dark-side perspective of psychological ownership (Cocieru et al., 2019), which has shown individuals high in psychological ownership to be more likely to favor ideas that resembled their own and discount those that did not (Baer and Brown, 2012). In such instances, psychological ownership of entrepreneurial ideas may weaken the ability of individuals with PsyCap to function as an exploratory resource in search of new opportunities. Given the lack of prior empirical evidence regarding the possible impact of psychological ownership of entrepreneurial ideas, we propose the following generic hypothesis:

H3: Psychological ownership of entrepreneurial ideas moderates the relationship between psychological capital and entrepreneurial opportunity recognition.

The prior sections established that opportunity recognition is likely to mediate the effects of PsyCap on EI (Krueger and Carsrud, 1993; Boyd and Vozikis, 1994; Edelman and Yli–Renko, 2010), and that the psychological ownership of entrepreneurial ideas may condition the relationship between PsyCap and opportunity recognition (Belk, 1988; Pierce et al., 2001, 2003). Combining H1, H2 and H3, we propose a mediated moderation model (see Figure 1) in which psychological ownership of ideas conditions the PsyCap—opportunity recognition—EI relationship. Prior findings linking psychological ownership to greater innovative behavior settings (Liu et al., 2019) and to sustained entrepreneurial persistence under adverse conditions (Zhu et al., 2018; Hsu, 2013), suggest that ownership feelings toward entrepreneurial ideas may intensify the translation of PsyCap into opportunity recognition and thus ultimately into EI. Conversely, research has shown that individuals who hold strong ownership feelings toward ideas evaluate competing suggestions less favorably (Baer and Brown, 2012), and that high confidence and high optimism are associated with reduced responsiveness to new information during entrepreneurial decision-making (Uy et al., 2024; Amore et al., 2021). Such findings suggest that ownership feelings toward entrepreneurial ideas may weaken the translation of PsyCap into opportunity recognition and thus ultimately into EI. Given the ambiguous findings concerning psychological ownership, we propose the following hypothesis.

H4: Psychological ownership of entrepreneurial ideas moderates the indirect effect of psychological capital on entrepreneurial intentions through opportunity recognition, such that the strength of this indirect effect varies with the individual's psychological ownership of entrepreneurial ideas.

Figure 1 illustrates the conceptual framework of the study.

3 Methods

3.1 Sample

Higher education is critical to developing graduates' motivation and capabilities to engage effectively in entrepreneurial activity (Tomy and Pardede, 2020). In particular, research has suggested that focusing on the younger generation is crucial to understanding which factors influence their future business intentions (Turker and Sonmez Selçuk, 2009). Compared to students enrolled in traditional universities, students in vocational programs in China tend to be younger in age and come from more varied backgrounds, thus making them ideal to examine how EI is developed. Accordingly, this study focuses on students enrolled in a vocational college in Suzhou, China.

A Sojump online questionnaire-based survey was launched with the support of the vocational college management. A total of 431 students enrolled in secondary and higher vocational programs were invited to participate, and class teachers distributed the questionnaire's QR code to them. A two-wave data collection strategy was employed to reduce common method bias. In the first wave, participants were asked to provide basic demographic data, the extent of their PsyCap and their feelings of psychological ownership toward their entrepreneurial ideas. During the first wave, we received a total of 336 completed questionnaires with a 78% response rate. Two weeks later, the 336 students from the first wave were contacted again and invited to complete a survey on their perceptions of opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial intentions (EI). Two hundred sixty-eight responses were received, representing an 80% response rate. After screening the responses, 64 from wave one were excluded due to careless responses, as they failed to answer the attention check questions (Meade and Craig, 2012); subsequently, 19 from wave two were excluded for the same reason. After matching the two waves and removing invalid responses, 185 complete and valid responses were retained for the final analysis.

An attrition analysis was conducted by comparing retained participants (N = 185) and excluded non-response and careless response participants (N = 151) on the key Wave 1 variables. Independent-samples t-tests indicated no significant differences between the two groups in psychological capital (t = 0.088, p = 0.930) or psychological ownership of entrepreneurial ideas (t = −0.201, p = 0.841). The negligible effect sizes further suggested that attrition was unlikely to substantially bias the results. Of these retained respondents, all participants were between 15 and 20 years old; 52% were male, 48% were female; 48% were enrolled in secondary vocational programs and 52% in higher vocational programs.

3.2 Measures

This study used scales that have previously been published as highly valid measures. Full item wording for all four scales is provided in the Appendix. Because the measures in this study are initially in English, a translation-back-translation procedure was used for the Chinese measures to avoid losing the original meaning (Klotz et al., 2023). Two bilingual PhD students performed the translation-back-translation process. The researcher compared the English and Chinese versions and corrected them for consistency in the original meaning. Items were rated on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree.

Psychological ownership toward entrepreneurial ideas was measured using seven items adapted from Van Dyne and Pierce (2004). The adaptation involved replacing organizational referents in the original items (e.g., “this organization,” “my job”) with references to “these ideas” or “my entrepreneurial idea(s),” to reflect the entrepreneurial-idea context of the present study. Such an approach is consistent with that of Baer and Brown (2012) who also adapted the original psychological ownership scale for ideas. Example items include “I feel these ideas are mine” and “I feel responsible for these ideas.” The Cronbach's alpha for psychological ownership was 0.944.

Opportunity recognition was measured using 5 items from Kuckertz et al. (2017). Example items are “I am always alert to business opportunities” and “I research potential markets to identify business opportunities.” The Cronbach's alpha for opportunity recognition was 0.914.

Entrepreneurial intention was measured using 6 items from Liñán and Chen (2009). Example items are “I am ready to do anything to be an entrepreneur,” “My professional goal is to become an entrepreneur.” The Cronbach's alpha for entrepreneurial intention was 0.882.

Psychological capital (PsyCap) was measured using 12 items from Dudasova et al. (2021). The PsyCap scale consists of four dimensions: self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience. Example items are “I am looking forward to the life ahead of me” and “If I should find myself in a jam, I could think of many ways to get out of it.” The Cronbach's alpha for PsyCap was 0.951.

Based on prior literature, we also controlled for the following factors, which have been found to influence EI. They are gender (Díaz-García and Jiménez-Moreno, 2010), education level (Liñán et al., 2011), and age (Hatak et al., 2015).

4 Results

4.1 Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations

Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics and intercorrelations among the study variables. Psychological capital was positively and significantly correlated with psychological ownership of entrepreneurial ideas (r = 0.682, p < 0.01), opportunity recognition (r = 0.365, p < 0.01), and entrepreneurial intention (r = 0.335, p < 0.01). Opportunity recognition was also positively associated with EI (r = 0.726, p < 0.01), providing preliminary support for its proposed mediating role in the relationship between psychological capital and entrepreneurial intention. In addition, psychological ownership of entrepreneurial ideas was positively correlated with both opportunity recognition (r = 0.279, p < 0.01) and EI (r = 0.268, p < 0.01). Overall, the results offer preliminary evidence for the direct associations between PsyCap, opportunity recognition, and EI.

Table 1. Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations.

N = 185, ^*p < 0.05, ^**p < 0.01.

4.2 Test of common method bias

Before testing our proposed hypotheses, multicollinearity was assessed using tolerance and variance inflation factor (VIF) statistics in SPSS 29. Across the regression models, all tolerance values exceeded 0.40, and all VIF values were below 3, suggesting that multicollinearity was not a serious concern (Hair et al., 2010).

To address the potential issue of common method bias (CMB), we conducted Harman's single-factor test (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Using the principal axis factoring extraction method, the results indicated that the first factor explained 44.5% of the variance, which is below the commonly used 50% threshold for detecting CMB (Podsakoff et al., 2003). To have a more rigorous assessment of CMB, we performed an unmeasured latent method construct (ULMC) in the CFA within SEM (Podsakoff et al., 2003, 2012). The ULMC results indicated that after introducing an unmeasured latent method construct, there were only trivial changes in the model fit indices (ΔCFI = −0.007, ΔTLI = −0.007, ΔRMSEA = +0.003). This ULMC comparison did not indicate substantial evidence that common method variance materially changed the measurement model, although common method bias cannot be fully ruled out because all focal variables were self-reported (see Table 2).

Table 2. Measurement model CFA and ULMC.

N = 185.

4.3 . Measurement model

To evaluate the measurement model and explore the proposed relationships, Structural equation modeling (SEM) was performed using SPSS AMOS 29 (Arbuckle, 2022). According to Cheung et al. (2024), construct reliability (CR) is a more suitable reliability measure for SEM-based studies than Cronbach's alpha. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed to verify the factor structure. The CFA analysis of the measurement model showed that all standardized factor loadings were significant and above 0.5. Additionally, all CRs exceeded 0.7, indicating each construct explained over 49% of the variance in its indicators, which confirms good reliability. The average variance extracted (AVE) values also went beyond 0.5, meaning over half of the variance in each construct was captured by the latent factor, demonstrating strong convergent validity. The Fornell–Larcker criterion for discriminant validity (Fornell and Larcker, 1981) showed that the square root of the AVE for each construct exceeded its correlations with other constructs, indicating that the constructs were empirically distinct.

The 4-factor baseline model specified PsyCap as a higher-order construct represented by four first-order dimensions, with each dimension measured by three observed indicators, was adopted in this study because it demonstrated superior model fit compared with all alternative models. The model demonstrated acceptable fit indices (χ² = 703.120, df = 395, χ²/df = 1.780, RMR = 0.037, CFI = 0.935, RMSEA = 0.065), supporting its suitability for further analysis. After confirming the adequacy of the measurement model, the hypothesized structural model was examined. The moderation effect was modeled using an observed interaction term created by multiplying mean-centered composite scores of PsyCap and psychological ownership. The structural model demonstrated an acceptable fit to the data (χ² = 882.838, df = 500, χ²/df = 1.766, RMR = 0.037, SRMR = 0.051, CFI = 0.921, RMSEA = 0.065), supporting further examination of the hypothesized structural relationships (Hair et al., 2010; Smith et al., 2021).

Table 3 presents factor loadings, construct reliability, and average variance extracted. Table 4 presents the discriminant validity results using the Fornell–Larcker criterion.

Table 3. Factor loading, construct reliability, and average variance extracted.

Table 4. Discriminant validity results based on the Fornell–Larcker criterion.

Square root of AVE is shown in the bold diagonal in the table.

The rest of the numbers show the correlations between factors.

4.4 . Structural model

After controlling for gender, degree, and age, we ran AMOS SEM analyses (Arbuckle, 2022) to examine all proposed hypotheses. Prior to testing the structural model, in this study, PsyCap was specified as a higher-order construct represented by four first-order dimensions: hope, optimism, self-efficacy, and resilience. Each dimension was measured using three observed indicators. Psychological ownership, opportunity recognition, and entrepreneurial intention were specified as first-order latent constructs measured by their respective observed items. Specifically, scores for the four first-order PsyCap dimensions were first calculated by averaging their respective items, and these four dimension scores were subsequently aggregated to obtain the overall PsyCap score.

To examine the moderating effect of psychological ownership on the relationship between PsyCap and opportunity recognition, PsyCap and psychological ownership scores were mean-centered before creating the interaction term. The interaction term (C_PsyCap × C_PsyOwn) was generated by multiplying the two centered variables and was incorporated as an observed variable into the SEM model. The structural model was estimated using maximum likelihood estimation in AMOS. The significance of indirect effects was assessed using bias-corrected bootstrapping procedures with 5,000 resamples and a 95% confidence interval. The structural model results are reported using unstandardized path coefficients (b), standard errors (SE), critical ratios (CR), and p-values.

The results showed that PsyCap had a significant positive effect on EI (b = 0.448, SE = 0.148, CR = 3.291, p = 0.001). Therefore, H1 was supported. Psychological capital was positively related to opportunity recognition (b = 0.501, SE = 0.190, CR = 2.634, p = 0.008), while opportunity recognition was positively related to EI (b = 0.674, SE = 0.077, CR = 8.714, p < 0.001). More importantly, the indirect effect of PsyCap on EI through opportunity recognition was statistically significant [b = 0.322, 95% CI (0.015, 0.835), p = 0.038], as the confidence interval did not include zero, H2 was thus supported. Furthermore, the direct effect of psychological capital of entrepreneurial ideas on EI remained significant after opportunity recognition was included in the model (b = 0.448, p = 0.001), indicating partial rather than full mediation.

The interaction between PsyCap and psychological ownership of entrepreneurial ideas was found to have a significant positive effect on opportunity recognition (b = 0.176, SE = 0.061, CR = 2.905, p = 0.004). Thus, H3 was supported. The positive interaction coefficient indicates that the positive association between PsyCap and opportunity recognition becomes stronger as psychological ownership of entrepreneurial ideas increases. Although the main effect of psychological ownership of entrepreneurs on opportunity recognition was not significant (b = 0.163, SE = 0.133, CR = 1.221, p = 0.222), this does not invalidate the significant interaction effect.

To further probe this interaction, simple slopes of PsyCap on opportunity recognition were estimated at low (−1 SD), mean, and high (+1 SD) levels of psychological ownership of entrepreneurial ideas (Aiken and West, 1991; Dawson, 2014). The PsyCap–opportunity recognition relationship was weaker and marginally significant among students with low psychological ownership (b = 0.199, CR = 1.875, p = 0.063). In contrast, the relationship became stronger and significant at the mean level of psychological ownership (b = 0.342, CR = 3.485, p < 0.001) and was strongest among students with high psychological ownership (b = 0.463, CR = 4.347, p < 0.001). Figure 2 presents the simple slopes graphically.

The estimated moderated indirect effect was not statistically significant [b = 0.153, 95% CI (−0.036, 0.225), p = 0.119], as the confidence interval contained zero, there was insufficient evidence that the indirect effect of psychological capital on entrepreneurial intention varied significantly across levels of psychological ownership. Therefore, H4 was not supported.

In summary, the results supported the positive direct relationship between PsyCap and EI (H1), the mediating role of opportunity recognition (H2), and the moderating role of psychological ownership of entrepreneurial ideas in the relationship between PsyCap and opportunity recognition (H3). However, the proposed moderated mediation effect was not statistically significant; therefore, H4 was rejected. Table 5 illustrates the SPSS SEM regression output.

Table 5. Structural equation modeling outputs.

^***p > 0.001

5 Discussion

Findings from the study provide several important insights into the psychological mechanisms underlying the entrepreneurial intentions of vocational college students in China. We discuss our findings below in relation to each hypothesis and note that while H1, H2, and H3 were supported, the proposed moderated mediation (H4) was not. First, consistent with H1, PsyCap was positively associated with entrepreneurial intention, and this direct relationship remained significant even after opportunity recognition was included in the model. Additionally and consistent with H2, our findings also showed opportunity recognition to statistically account for part of the association between PsyCap and EI. This suggests that Chinese vocational students with higher levels of PsyCap, characterized by hope, self-efficacy, resilience, and optimism, are likely to use this personal resource to identify potential entrepreneurial opportunities, which is in turn associated with greater motivation and commitment to start a new venture. Such a finding supports prior research showing how personal psychological resources can play a crucial role in entrepreneurial cognition and opportunity identification processes (Loi et al., 2025; Welter and Scrimpshire, 2021).

Consistent with H3, findings also showed that psychological ownership toward entrepreneurial ideas conditioned the relationship between PsyCap and opportunity recognition. Given the competing predictions from the resource-deployment and self-protective perspectives on psychological ownership developed earlier, our findings only supported the strengthening direction rather than the weakening one. Broadly, this can be interpreted as an empirical resolution between two theoretically defensible possibilities, rather than as strong confirmation of a single directional prediction made in advance. Specifically, the positive association between PsyCap and opportunity recognition was stronger among Chinese vocational college students who had higher levels of psychological ownership toward entrepreneurial ideas. This pattern is consistent with the self-investment route of psychological ownership described by Pierce et al. (2001, 2003), whereby individuals who invest effort, thought, and energy into an idea come to experience it as an extension of themselves. When an entrepreneurial idea becomes incorporated into a student's self-concept, safeguarding and advancing that idea takes on personal significance beyond its instrumental value as a potential business opportunity. In such instances, Chinese vocational college students may be more willing to mobilize the confidence, optimism, hope, and resilience that constitute PsyCap to recognize and evaluate opportunities connected to that idea, rather than distributing these psychological resources more diffusely. Our finding is also consistent with the resource-based view of entrepreneurial cognition, in which psychological resources generate value most strongly when they are bundled toward a concrete target rather than deployed in the abstract (Barney, 1991; Sirmon et al., 2007), with psychological ownership of entrepreneurial ideas providing this concrete target by generating a felt responsibility for the idea's success that may sharpen and direct the cognitive and motivational benefits psychological capital would otherwise confer only diffusely.

By contrast, and inconsistent with H4, psychological ownership toward entrepreneurial ideas did not condition the mediating effect of opportunity recognition in the PsyCap–EI relationship. One possible explanation is that opportunity recognition is strongly and consistently associated with entrepreneurial intention regardless of individuals' levels of psychological ownership. Put simply, once an entrepreneurial opportunity is recognized, the motivational pathway linking opportunity recognition to EI may operate relatively similarly across individuals. A further explanation may be due to the developmental stage of the ideas among Chinese vocational college students. Theoretically, feelings of ownership toward entrepreneurial ideas are likely to develop cumulatively (Pierce et al., 2001, 2003), thus suggesting ongoing engagement with the venture creation process. However, Chinese vocational students are likely to be limited in their entrepreneurial experiences and, thus, unlikely to have accumulated a high degree of investment in any single idea. Instead, their ideas may be nascent or rough. Such an interpretation is consistent with Belk's (1988) notion of the extended self, which frames incorporation of a possession into identity as a process that deepens with investment rather than something present from the moment an idea is first conceived.

5.1 Theoretical contributions

This study makes several contributions to the existing literature on the formation of EI. First, it extends the resource-based perspective of entrepreneurship by clarifying how PsyCap is translated into EI. Previous research has established PsyCap as a valuable, person-specific resource associated with entrepreneurial outcomes, but has provided little understanding of the psychological processes through which this resource shapes EI (Alvarez and Busenitz, 2001; Loi et al., 2025; Welter and Scrimpshire, 2021). Specifically, our findings suggest that as personal resource that has entrepreneurial value before a venture exists, PsyCap enables individuals to remain confident when facing uncertainty, interpret ambiguous environmental information more positively, explore alternative pathways toward entrepreneurial goals, and persist in searching for opportunities despite setbacks (Baron et al., 2016; Hmieleski et al., 2015; Luthans et al., 2007a). Such psychological resources subsequently strengthen EIs by helping to identify personally meaningful and potentially actionable business opportunities.

Such a finding contributes to the resource-based perspective of entrepreneurship which has tended to emphasize that possessing valuable resources alone may not produce an advantage unless those resources are effectively bundled, deployed, and leveraged (Alvarez and Busenitz, 2001; Sirmon et al., 2007). Consistent with this reasoning, our study suggests that the entrepreneurial value of PsyCap is partly realized through its deployment in opportunity-recognition activities. Opportunity recognition, therefore, represents a cognitive mechanism connecting the possession of a personal psychological resource with the formation of an intention to undertake entrepreneurial action.

Second, our study strengthens the case for examining PsyCap as an integrated, multidimensional resource rather than treating hope, self-efficacy, resilience, and optimism exclusively as separate predictors (Loi et al., 2025; Welter and Scrimpshire, 2021). While the four dimensions are conceptually distinct, their shared orientation toward goal attainment yields a higher-order resource whose combined influence may exceed that of its individual components (Avey et al., 2011; Dudasova et al., 2021; Youssef and Luthans, 2007). By demonstrating that the integrated PsyCap construct predicts both opportunity recognition and EI, the study provides evidence of its relevance across multiple stages of the entrepreneurial process. For instance, opportunity recognition was found to only partially mediate the relationship between PsyCap and EI. Such a finding suggests that PsyCap as an integrated multidimensional resource may also directly strengthen EI through other mechanisms such as perceived feasibility, confidence in performing entrepreneurial tasks, goal commitment, persistence, or the capacity to tolerate uncertainty (Boyd and Vozikis, 1994; Luthans and Youssef, 2017).

Third, we provide unique insights into for whom EIs is formed. Prior research on psychological ownership has largely examined it within organizational, job, team, and innovation contexts (Baer and Brown, 2012; Gray et al., 2020; Pierce et al., 2003; Van Dyne and Pierce, 2004). In contrast, our study, by positioning psychological ownership toward entrepreneurial ideas as a boundary condition in the relationship between PsyCap and opportunity recognition, extends it to the earlier, pre-venture stage of opportunity recognition. Specifically, our study highlights that the mere psychological ownership of entrepreneurial ideas does not independently improve opportunity recognition but instead functions as a resource-activation condition which channels and intensifies the use of existing psychological resources toward ideas individuals experience as genuinely their own. Such a notion is consistent with the resource-based argument that advantage is generated through the active, purposeful deployment of resources rather than through their possession alone (Sirmon et al., 2007). More importantly, the boundary condition operated only on the direct PsyCap-opportunity recognition relationship, however the hypothesized extension of the boundary conditioning on the full indirect effect on EI was not supported.

Finally, our study extends EI research to students at a Chinese vocational college. Existing research has concentrated predominantly on university students, with comparatively limited attention to students enrolled in vocational programs (Batista-Canino et al., 2024; Galvão et al., 2018; Liñán and Fayolle, 2015). Vocational students represent a theoretically and practically relevant population because their education is anchored in technical knowledge, application-oriented, closely connected to specific occupations, and intended to support workforce readiness (Xiong, 2011; Xue and Li, 2022; Yu et al., 2025). By showing that PsyCap and opportunity recognition are associated with EI in this setting, the study broadens the contextual scope of resource-based and extended-self explanations of entrepreneurship and demonstrates their relevance during an early stage of students' occupational development, particularly those engaged in vocational education.

5.2 Practical implications

Findings from the study have several implications for decision makers in vocational colleges, entrepreneurship educators, and policymakers in China. First, vocational entrepreneurship education should complement the development of business knowledge and technical competence with systematic efforts to strengthen students' PsyCap. As PsyCap is considered state-like and can be developed through structured intervention, it can be strengthened through targeted education and training (Luthans and Youssef, 2004; Youssef and Luthans, 2007) within existing vocational educational frameworks.

Second, opportunity recognition should be treated as a central, learnable component of entrepreneurship education, as it positively associated with entrepreneurial intention. It should be taught and assessed as a competency, through activities such as customer interviews, market observation exercises in industry partners' enterprises, community problem mapping and scoping, industry visits, environmental scanning assignments, business case analysis, and opportunity evaluation workshops. These exposures will sharpen students' alertness to recognition of opportunity beyond a general awareness of ideas. Students who demonstrate competency acquire a transferable analytical capability to employers even if they do not establish any entrepreneurial ventures after graduation.

Third, programs should create conditions that encourage students to develop psychological ownership of their entrepreneurial ideas. Psychological ownership develops partly through perceived control, intimate knowledge of a target, and the investment of personal time and effort (Brown et al., 2014; Pierce et al., 2001; Jo et al., 2023). Educators can support these processes by allowing students to choose problems that are personally meaningful, make substantive decisions about project development, customize their business ideas, acquire detailed knowledge of relevant customers and markets, and take responsibility for project outcomes; designed around sustained engagement with an entrepreneurial project rather than short stand-alone activities.

Further, entrepreneurship education can go beyond the boundaries of individual courses or programs. Vocational institutions can support entrepreneurial development by providing opportunities to enhance psychological capital and opportunity recognition through other learning experiences such as career activities, industry attachments, project-based learning and extra-curricular innovation initiatives and competitions. This aligns with educational policies which promote industry-academia collaboration, work placements and internships within education curricula.

Finally, policymakers and vocational institutions should evaluate entrepreneurship programs using outcomes beyond program participation or general satisfaction. Evaluations could assess changes in PsyCap, opportunity-recognition ability, psychological ownership, entrepreneurial intention, and subsequent entrepreneurial action. Such an evaluation would help institutions determine which educational activities affect particular stages of students' entrepreneurial development. This evaluation is particularly significant as governments seek to establish vocational education on equal standing as general education in light of severe shortage in vocationally trained human resource for employment and entrepreneurship.

5.3 Limitations and future research directions

Like any study, our study is not without its limitations. First, although the two-wave design provides temporal separation, it does not establish causality (Ployhart and Vandenberg, 2010; Ployhart and MacKenzie, 2014). PsyCap and psychological ownership of entrepreneurial ideas were measured at Wave 1, whereas opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial intention were both measured at Wave 2; thus, their temporal ordering remains unclear, and reciprocal effects are possible. Future research should use three or more waves to separate the mediator from the outcome. Cross-lagged, experimental, or intervention designs could further test reciprocal relationships and whether changes in PsyCap or psychological ownership produce subsequent changes in opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial intention.

Second, all focal variables were self-reported, which may introduce social desirability, consistency, and common-method bias (Conway and Lance, 2010; Podsakoff et al., 2003). Although temporal separation reduces these concerns, opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial intention were measured in the same wave. Future research should combine self-reports with behavioral opportunity-recognition tasks, teacher or peer assessments, and independent evaluations of identified opportunities.

Third, our study examined EI rather than entrepreneurial behavior. Although entrepreneurial intention is an important antecedent of venture-creation behavior (Krueger et al., 2000; Liñán and Chen, 2009), intention does not inevitably result in action. Financial constraints, family expectations, employment opportunities, institutional barriers, and access to entrepreneurial networks may prevent students from acting on their intentions. Future longitudinal research should follow students beyond graduation and examine whether PsyCap and opportunity recognition predict behavioral outcomes such as joining an incubator, registering a business, or sustaining a new venture. This would help determine whether the psychological process identified in the study extends from intention formation to entrepreneurial action.

Fourth, the study conceptualizes PsyCap as an integrated higher-order resource. This approach is consistent with its theoretical purpose and with research emphasizing the synergistic value of PsyCap (Avey et al., 2011; Welter and Scrimpshire, 2021). Nevertheless, it does not establish whether hope, self-efficacy, resilience, and optimism play different roles in opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial intention. Future research could compare the individual and combined effects of these dimensions.

Fifth, our characterization of Chinese vocational students as facing constrained resources and lower EI relative to their university-educated peers was largely based on findings from prior literature (You et al., 2017; Guo et al., 2022; Wach and Bilan, 2021) rather than on constructs measured directly in this study. Hence, future research should incorporate direct measures of socio-economic status and institutional resources to test this characterization empirically. Additionally, we controlled only for gender, degree, and age. Prior literature has identified contextual influences relevant to vocational students, such as prior entrepreneurship education, family business background, entrepreneurial experience, socioeconomic background, and exposure to entrepreneurial role models (Wach and Bilan, 2021) which may account for additional variance in opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial intention. Accordingly future research should incorporate such contextual controls as well.

Finally, because opportunity recognition only partially mediated the PsyCap–entrepreneurial intention relationship, the model does not capture all relevant cognitive and motivational mechanisms. Future studies could examine complementary mediators such as entrepreneurial self-efficacy, perceived feasibility and desirability, creativity, entrepreneurial passion, risk appraisal, and goal commitment. Incorporating these individual mechanisms would provide a more comprehensive explanation of how psychological resources are converted into entrepreneurial intentions and, ultimately, entrepreneurial behavior. enlargethispage-10pt

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Supplementary material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/forgp.2026.1943843/full#supplementary-material

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Footnotes

Edited by: Alejandro Orgambídez, University of Malaga, Spain

Reviewed by: Adilla Anggraeni, Binus University, Indonesia

Norbert Sipos, University of Pécs, Hungary