The impact of social and cultural atmosphere on ethnic minority groups’ online entrepreneurship intention: A multi-group analysis on the gender gap

This paper discovers the impact of China’s particular social and cultural atmosphere on ethnic minority groups’ (EMGs) online entrepreneurship intention from three aspects, including Peers’ guanxi, Confucianism, and Family business atmosphere aspects, and it divides them into emotional and instrumental support according to the social support theory. Through testing 517 samples based on the partial least squares path modelling and variance-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), influencing factors, such as peers’ trust and family approval, from Peers’ guanxi and Family business atmosphere units separately positively affect EMG college students’ online entrepreneurship intention, and the conservative thinking factor under Confucianism unit plays a negative role. Furthermore, considering the impact of patriarchal attitudes on the Gender gap, the paper performs a multi-group analysis to assess the differences between EMG female students and EMG male students. The study finds two significant differences in the following paths: the path between family approval and EMGs’ online entrepreneurship intention and the relationship between peers’ trust and EMGs’ online entrepreneurship intention.