FAMILY BACKGROUND AND FINANCIAL LITERACY AS A PREREQUISITE FOR ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTION OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

University students are young and highly educated individuals with high entrepreneurial potential. Still, there are not many of them who are willing to accomplish their own entrepreneurial ideas. Empirical research shows that the most common causes for termination of entrepreneurial activities are inadequate profitability and insufficient knowledge to run a business venture which makes students' financial literacy extremely important issue. A large scale scientific project was carried out to explore the level of financial literacy and the likelihood of taking risks among the student population in Croatia. This paper presents main results of the quantitative part of the research, as well as detailed analysis of qualitative-based focus group research that was performed in order to examine how the family background can shape an individual's level of financial literacy and entrepreneurial orientation later in life. In the current situation of low level of awareness of financial topics among students and fairly conservative risk attitude of Croatian students, it was found that supportive family background is the cornerstone for the development of future entrepreneurial activities of young individuals. The importance of financial literacy in the context of strengthening youth entrepreneurship and the emphasis of entrepreneurial competencies included in the educational system remains a challenge and opens new research direction for further analysis.