Military service and entrepreneurial intentions: the impact of service tenure and technical expertise

This study investigates the factors that shape entrepreneurial intentions (EI) among military personnel across the three branches of the Indian Armed Forces. Drawing on a survey of 350 military officers, we examine how commission type, technical background, and service role are associated with EI. Officers holding a Permanent Commission (PC) exhibited marginally though non-significantly higher EI than those holding a Short Service Commission (SSC; mean EI: 0.269 vs. 0.189; t (252) = 0.68, p = 0.497, d = 0.09), a result that runs counter to the career-uncertainty hypothesis advanced in H1 and invites theoretical re-examination. Officers with a technical background demonstrated substantially higher EI than their non-technical counterparts (0.301 vs. -0.062; t (439) = 4.09, p < 0.001, d = 0.39), strongly supporting H2. Analysis of service role revealed no significant difference between combat and non-combat personnel in the full sample (0.261 vs. 0.095; t (285) = 1.36, p = 0.176, d = 0.18), indicating that H3 was not supported as a uniform main effect. However, a subsequent interaction analysis revealed a pronounced and highly significant effect among SSC officers specifically (SSC non-combat: 0.551 vs. SSC combat: -0.715; t (160) = 8.21, p < 0.001, d = 1.36), suggesting that the influence of service role on EI is conditional on commission type rather than uniform across the officer population. These findings carry direct implications for entrepreneurship education and training design. Effective transition programs must adopt differentiated pedagogical pathways that align with officers' commission type, technical competencies, and service role with particular attention to SSC combat officers as a structurally underserved subgroup. These insights contribute to the cultivation of a global entrepreneurial mindset among military personnel transitioning to civilian life.