This study sheds light on the importance of the exposure to entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial role models regarding the entrepreneurial intention of engineering students, as they are the potential founders of new knowledge intensive start-ups. With this purpose, a questionnaire surveying a sample of 851 engineering students from a technical university in Spain is developed. The results point out that parents who own a business foster entrepreneurial intention and related attitudes in their sons/daughters. To the contrary, civil servants are identified as a negative role model, hindering both attitudes and intentions towards entrepreneurship.
Keywords: Entrepreneurial intention; technology-based start-ups; parental role models
