Digital creative self-efficacy as a mediator: Linking entrepreneurial education with entrepreneurial intention and self-creativity in Malaysia and Indonesia's digital economy

This paper introduces and empirically investigates a conceptual model examining the effect of entrepreneurial education on entrepreneurial intention and self-creativity through digital creative self-efficacy (DCSE) as a mediating mechanism. Integrating Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) with the Componential Theory of Creativity (CTC), the study positions self-creativity as an outcome of entrepreneurial education and tests this model comparatively across Malaysia and Indonesia. Domain-specific creative self-efficacy remains rarely tested as a mediating mechanism linking education to entrepreneurial outcomes, and comparative evidence from Southeast Asian digital economies is scarce; this gap motivates the present cross-country design. Data were collected from undergraduate students in Malaysia (n = 113) and Indonesia (n = 151) between September and November 2024 using stratified random sampling across multiple universities. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) analysis reveals significant cross-country differences in how entrepreneurial education influences student outcomes. DCSE fully mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial education and outcomes in Indonesia, suggesting that psychological mechanisms are the primary pathway where institutional support is nascent. In Malaysia, partial mediation indicates that both direct knowledge transfer and confidence-building pathways are operative. Measurement invariance was confirmed through MICOM before making cross-country comparisons. These findings contribute to the literature on domain-specific self-efficacy, creativity as an entrepreneurial outcome, and the institutional contingency of mediation mechanisms in digital economy contexts.