Doctoral dissertation overview: Toward an attitude approach to predict entrepreneurial intention and test the role of entrepreneurship education and sources of capital - An empirical

Doctoral dissertation overview: Toward an attitude approach to predict entrepreneurial intention and test the role of entrepreneurship education and sources of capital - An empirical research in Vietnam

MINISTER OF EDUCATION UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HCM CITY TRAN QUANG LONG DOCTORAL DISSERTATION OVERVIEW “Toward an attitude approach to predict Entrepreneurial Intention and test the role of Entrepreneurship education and Sources of Capital: an empirical research in Vietnam” Major: Business Administration Code: 9340101 Ho Chi Minh City - 2018 Introduction Entrepreneurship has been around since the 18th century and has developed widely throughout the business world Schumpeter (1934) and Peter Drucker have an large contribution to the entrepreneurship definition Despite of some difference aspests, both Schumpeter and Drucker believe that entrepreneurship is significantly important for the overall economic health and point out some practical tools and aspects of entrepreneurship so that one can become a successful entrepreneur In the past couple of years, entrepreneurship has gained a lot more attraction Kelley, Singer and Herrington (2016) report that entrepreneurship is thought to be a good career choice by more than 73% of Vietnamese people As its economy emerges, young people in Vietnam have seen an increase in perceived entrepreneurial opportunities from 2013 to 2015 (36.8% to 56.8% respectively) However, their entrepreneurial intention is significantly lower with only about 22% Despite the importance of entrepreneurship to economic growth in Vietnam, there have not been many studies conducted on this topic Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine the impacts of Entrepreneurial Attitude Orientations (EAO) on Entrepreneurial Intention (EI) of Vietnamese adults It also investigates the moderating role of sources of capital on the relationship between EAO and EI This study will hopefully attract scholars and practitioners’ attention because it expands the body of knowledge of entrepreneurship field as well as provides practical implications for the country’s lawmakers, financial institution managers, and especially Vietnamese entrepreneurial mindsets Literature Review Approaches to predict Entrepreneurship Many authors have tried different approaches to predict entrepreneurship but there are two most common methods that emerge, which are personality traits and demographic information Personality Traits Approach There are certain authors who support the belief that personality traits are important factors to determine whether a person will become an entrepreneur such as kindness, need for achievement, locus of control, risk taking, innovation, problem-solving style, tolerance for ambiguity and values (Brockhaus, 1975; Brockhaus & Horwitz, 1986; Collins & Moore, 1970; Hornaday & Aboud, 1971; Palmer, 1971; Shapero, 1975; Swayne & Tucker, 1973) Despite having some success, this approach reveals some problems in conception and practice (Kilby, 1971; Klinger, 1966) It has been criticized by a number of researchers as unsatisfactory and questionable in explaining entrepreneurial conduct and performance (Gartner, 1988; Aldrich & Zimmer, 1986, Low & Macmillan, 1988) Robinson et al (1991) argue that the methodologies used in those personality trait studies were not built specifically for measuring entrepreneurship They find inconsistencies when many different scales were used to measure a certain concept and believe that research efficacy would be reduced when general measurements like personal traits are applied to a specific and dynamic field Demographic Approach Using demographic variables to study entrepreneurial intentions is very popular throughout several decades Factors such as birth, gender, role models, age, education level, family background and work habits are frequently used to develop a basic profile of entrepreneurs (Gaddam, 2008) Kristiansen and Indarti (2004) find several studies to support the argument that demographic variables influence entrepreneurial goals However, Robinson et al (1991) point out that this approach presents arguable problems and this approach does not help to predict whether a person would be a successful entrepreneur due to conflicting results (Bowen & Hisrich, 1986; Deivasenapathy, 1986; Hisrich, 1990) In addition, Garner (1985) convinces that an average personal profile of entrepreneurs cannot be built because entrepreneurs create an exceedingly heterogeneous group of people Toward a new approach: the attitude approach Since both approaches receive criticism for their methodological and conceptual limitations (Ajzen 1991; Gartner 1989; Low & MacMillan, 1988; Santos & Liñán 2007; Shapero & Sokol 1982), a better approach deems necessary Krueger, Reilly, and Carsrud (2000) argue that the decision to become an entrepreneur may be considered as voluntary and conscious so understanding about how that decision takes place and what factors effect an individual’s mind is very important From this sense, the entrepreneurial intention is perceived as a decisive antecedent of entrepreneurial behaviours (Fayolle & DeGeorge, 2006; Kolvereid, 1996) Ajzen (1991) states that “the intention of carrying out a given behaviour will depend on the person’s attitudes towards that behaviour.” The more favourable the attitudes are, the more plausible the intentions are Hence, an “attitude approach” would be more suitable than personal traits or demographic factors (Krueger et al., 2000; Robinson et al.,1991) Robinson et al (1991) develop the Entrepreneurial Attitude Orientation (EAO) scale which relies on attitude theory and is specifically designed to predict entrepreneurship Entrepreneurial Intentions Entrepreneurial intentions (EI) is defined as “an individual’s desire to create their own business” (Crant, 1996) or “to start a business” (Krueger et al., 2000) Thompson (2009) defines EI as “self-acknowledged conviction by a person that they intend to set up a new business venture and consciously plan to so at some point in the future” Intentions have been used to describe self- prediction to engage in behaviour; “the stronger the intention is, the more probable the behaviour is” (Ajzen, 1991; Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980) Social-psychological studies assume that intention is the sole predictor of actual behaviour (Bagozzi, Baumgartner, & Yi, 1989; Armitage & Conner, 2001) Despite of that, some scholars suspect whether intentions truly predict actual entrepreneurial behaviour (Douglas & Shepherd, 2002) However, multiple studies still find entrepreneurial intentions as one of the crucial antecedents of actual entrepreneurial behaviours and actions (Bird, 1988; Fayolle & DeGeorge, 2006; Krueger & Carsrud, 1993; Kolvereid, 1996; Lee, Wong, Foo, & Leung, 2011; Tkachev & Kolvereid, 1999) Entrepreneurial Attitude Orientation (EAO) Attitude is defined as the predisposition to respond in a generally favourable or unfavourable manner (Ajzen, 2005; Rosenberg & Hovland, 1960; Shaver, 1987) Although there are several attitude approaches such as TPB (Ajzen, 1991), EEM (Shapero & Sokol, 1982), Robinson et al (1991) develop the EAO scale which contains four subscales Each subscale consists of three attitude components including Affection, Cognition, and Conation (also referred to as the behavioural component) According to Robinson et al (1991), “the larger the value of each subscale is, the higher the ability to predict entrepreneurial individual is.” Huefner, Hunt, and Robinson (1996) affirm that the EAO successfully distinguished entrepreneurs and non- entrepreneurs in several studies Robinson et al (1991) applied the tripartite model, included three types of reaction to everything: affect (AFF_consists of positive or negative feelings toward the object), cognition (COG_ consists of the beliefs and thoughts an individual has about an attitude object), and conation or behavioral (BEH_ consists of behavioral intentions and predispositions to behave in a given way toward the object) Using the attitude components in the EAO research would enhance the content validity of each subscale (Huefner et al., 1996) Figure Entrepreneurial Attitude Orientation (EAO) Achievement Self-esteem Cognition Affection Attitude Conative Innovation Personal Control Self-esteem The concept of self-esteem has been variously defined in the literature Crandall (1973) defines self-esteem as “linking and respecting of oneself which has some realistic basic” (p.45) Coopersmith (1981) believes that self-esteem is “an impression of approval or disapproval, indicating the extent to which a person’s belief for himself or herself is competent, successful, significant and worthy” (Coopersmith, 1981) While many authors believe that selfesteem does not affect entrepreneurial behaviour (Moradi and Razaviyayn, 2013; Moradi, 2010), there are many studies confirm self-esteem is the most important characteristic of entrepreneurs (Pyszczynski, Solomon, Greenberg, & Arndt, 2004) Cunningham et al., 2005; Ji, Lapan, & Tate, 2004; Johnson, Stone, & Phillips, 2008) In other words, there is still unconsistent result bout self-esteem in entrepreneurship With that being said, the following hypothesis is proposed: H1: Self_esteem (H1.1: SE_AFF; H1.2: SE_COG; H1.3: SE_BEH) positively impacts entrepreneurial intention Innovation Innovation is defined as “a process that involves the generation, adoption, implementation and incorporation of new ideas, or practices within an organization” (Van de Ven et al., 1989) According to OECD and European Commission (1997), innovation means completing products and services by developing them technologically (as cited in Gündoğdu, 2012) Damanpour and Gopalakrishnan (2001, p.47) define innovation as “the adoption of an idea or behaviour pertaining to a product, service, device, system, policy, or program that is new to the adopting organization.” Innovation has traditionally been linked to entrepreneurship (Schumpeter, 1934) Many researchers have emphasized the relevance of innovation for businesses (e.g., Hsueh & Tu, 2004; Freel, & Robson, 2004) In Gündoğdu’s opinion, under the environment of advanced information and communication technology, with the trend of globalization, entrepreneurs and enterprises were forced to respond to customers and adapt to the environment more quickly Innovation was an essential element for entrepreneurs to stay in business (Gündoğdu, 2012) With that being said, the following hypothesis is proposed: H2: Innovation (H2.1: INN_AFF; H2.2: INN_COG; H2.3: INN_BEH) positive impacts entrepreneurial intention Personal control According to Seeman (2008), “Personal control beliefs, also referred to as locus of control and personal mastery beliefs, reflects individuals' beliefs regarding the extent to which they are able to control or influence outcomes.” According to Rotter’s model, the locus of control of an individual includes internal and external control (Rotter, 1966) Many researchers believe that internal controls are typically associated with entrepreneurial characteristics (e.g Brockhaus, 1982; Cromie & O'Donoghue, 1991; Kaufman & Welsh, 1995; NiitKangas et al., 1994; Perry, 1990; Shaver &Scott, 1991) However, Schjoedt (2008) finds inconsistent and conflicting results when it comes to research on locus of control and entrepreneurship (e.g., Cooper & Gimeno- Gascon, 1992) With that being said, the following hypothesis is proposed: H3: Personal Control (H3.1:PC_AFF; H3.2: PC_COG; H3.3: PC_BEH) positive impacts entrepreneurial intention Achievement In the previous years, many factors such as money, wealth, power, name, fame, and achievement, have been studied as a source of entrepreneurial motivation (Drucker, 1964; McGregor, 1960, 1966; McClelland, 1981, 1987) Researchers also find that human needs and motives have an impact on one’s motivation during work (Maslow, 1943, 1954; McGregor, 1960, 1966) Need for achievement is defined as the “desire to well and to attain an inner feeling of personal accomplishment” (McClelland, Atkinson, Clark, & Lowell, 1953) Lee and Chen (2012) find that achievement motivation has a significant influence on entrepreneurial behaviour “once the motivation of running their own business overwhelms, they would choose to pursuit their desire by running their own business” (Lee and Chen, 2012) Many authors agreed with that there is a positive correlation between achievement motivation and entrepreneurship (Jayeoba, Sholest, and Lawal, 2013; Ahmed, 1985; Garland et al.,2003; Jayeoba et al., 2013) With that being said, the following hypothesis is proposed: H4: Achievements (H4.1: ACH_AFF, H4.2: ACH_COG; H4.3: ACH_BEH) positive impacts entrepreneurial intention Entrepreneurship education Entrepreneurship education consists of “any pedagogical [program] or process of education for entrepreneurial attitudes and skills” (Fayolle, Gailly, & Lassas-Clerc, 2006b, p 702) It has a relatively long history and has developed into a widespread phenomenon (Katz, 2003; Kuratko, 2005) However, as we found in literature researchers usually focus on different types of entrepreneurship education which targeted toward particular stages of development (Bridge, O’Neill, & Cromie, 1998; Gorman, Hanlon, & King, 1997; McMullan & Long, 1987) or specific audiences (Jamieson, 1984; Liñán, 2004) Method of Entrepreneurship education: Several different pedagogical designs for entrepreneurship education have been used ranging from business plans to guest speaker or venture creation (cf Kuratko, 2005) There are still arguments from author for the most positive method H5: Method of entrepreneurship education has a difference impact to (H5.1) self_esteem, (H5.2) innovation, (H5.3) personal control, (H5.4) achievement and (H5.5) entrepreneurial intention Duration of Entrepreneurship Education Schools usually offer entrepreneurship education in a various duration from a workshop to a semester The main difference is the level of absorpting for student between class meetings As such, we argue that when 12 (2011) agree that venture capital effects greatly on regional rates of entrepreneurship in the U.S Popov and Roosenboom (2013) find that venture capital investment positively impacts the rate of new businesses in several countries in Europe Studies usually focus on clarifying kinds of source of capital or stages There is an absent of research on the role of sources of capital With that being said, the following hypothesis is proposed: H8: Sources of capital moderates the relationship between (H8.1) Self_esteem; (H8.2) Innovation; (H8.3) Personal control; (H8.4) Achievements and entrepreneurial intention Figure shows the initial research model Education Methods: H5 Duration: H6 Level of education: H7 H1.1 H 5.1 H 6.1 H 7.1 Selfesteem (SE) AFF COG BEH H 5.5 H 6.5 H 7.5 H1.2 H1 H1.3 H2.1 H 5.2 H 6.2 H 7.2 Innovat ion (INN) AFF COG BEH H2.2 H2 H2.3 Entrepren_ eurial intention H3.1 H 5.3 H 6.3 H 7.3 Personal Control (PC) AFF COG BEH (EI) H3.2 H3 H3.3 H4.1 H 5.4 H 6.4 H 7.4 Achieve ment (ACH) Impact AFF COG BEH H4.2 H4 H4.3 H8.1 H8.4 Moderate H8.2 H8.3 Sources of capital Control 13 Methodology and Analysis Sampling A convenience sample was drawn to collect data in this study The target audience was Vietnamese adults who are 17 years old and older and reside the three largest cities including Ha Noi, Da Nang, and Ho Chi Minh Participants were selected from entrepreneurship programs and universities The self- administered survey method was adopted, which reduces the subjectivity errors This technique was appropriate in Vietnam to encourage people to participate in this kind of survey (Nguyen, 2011) The original questionnaire was written in English and translated into Vietnamese by a person who was not familiar with the topic It then went through a serious back translation procedure to insure the validity of instrument and was confirmed that there was no significant difference between the original version and the backtranslate version The questionnaires were delivered to respondents via emails using Google drive in addition to 500 hard copies version which were hand delivered The purpose of the study, informed consent, procedure of maintaining confidentiality, and instructions on how to complete the survey successfully were included in a cover letter 441 copies were received and after eliminating invalid copies, 337 were used for the analysis As seen in Table 1, the number of female respondents was slightly higher than that of male respondents (51.9% and 48.1% respectively) and majority of respondents were under 36 years old (93.2%) In addition, 78% of respondents were in a year college program Table 1: Demographic Variable (n = 337) Tiêu chí Valid Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent 14 Gender Male Female 17-25 26-35 36-45 >45 High school College Barchelor Master Age Level of education 162 175 223 91 17 48 16 263 10 48.1 51.9 66.2 27.0 5.0 1.8 14.2 4.7 78.0 3.0 48.1 51.9 66.2 27.0 5.0 1.8 14.2 4.7 78.0 3.0 48.1 100.0 66.2 93.2 98.2 100.0 14.2 19.0 97.0 100.0 Measurement Scale Entrepreneurial Attitude Orientation (EAO) Robinson et al (1991) designed the entrepreneurial attitudes orientation (EAO) which comprises 75 items The scale includes four subscales: Achievement (ACH) (23 items, Cronbach’s α =.84), Personal Control (PC) (12 items, Cronbach’s α = 70), Innovation (INN) (26 items, Cronbach’s α = 90), and Self- Esteem (SE) (14 items, Cronbach’s α = 73) The EAO scale has been widely used by previous researchers to quantify attitudes toward entrepreneurship (Boshoff & Scholtz, 1995; Harris & Gibson, 2008; Sharif & Saud, 2009; Stimpson, Huefner, Narayanan, & Shanthakumar, 1993; Wyk & Boshoff, 2004) In this study, we used the 7-point Likert scale to measure the entrepreneurial attitude in Vietnam with a higher score representing a strong entrepreneurship orientation Entrepreneurial Intentions (EI) This study used Linan and Chen (2009)’s 6-item Entrepreneurial Intentions (EI) scale which is behavioural-intention-oriented Each 15 item was measured on a 7-point Likert scale with a higher score representing a strong entrepreneurship intention Reliability To ensure the reliability of measurement scales, the authors computed several measures of internal consistency First, Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for a given construct was calculated To see whether individual items within the construct are poorly correlated with others, we also assessed item-total correlation of each item (i.e., one between it and the sum of the remaining instruments) and Cronbach’s alpha with the item deleted Table showed the final reliability test results of all scales Table 2: Reliability Scale Mean Scale if Item Variance if Deleted Item Deleted SE_AFF1 18.61 26.025 SE_AFF2 18.18 23.546 SE_AFF3 18.14 22.535 SE_AFF4 18.82 25.562 SE_AFF5 17.91 23.653 Cronbach's Alpha = 746 (N=5) SE_COG1 10.98 5.904 SE_COG2 11.12 6.863 SE_COG4 10.82 7.028 Cronbach's Alpha = 757 (N=3) PC_AFF2 5.91 1.597 PC_AFF3 5.65 1.733 Cronbach's Alpha = 803 (N=2) PC_BEH1 15.16 10.591 PC_BEH4 15.82 11.143 PC_BEH5 15.65 9.426 PC_BEH6 15.37 9.323 Cronbach's Alpha = 712 (N=4) PC_COG2 5.24 2.296 PC_COG3 5.09 2.216 Corrected Item-Total Correlation 415 561 594 435 547 Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted 735 682 668 728 688 638 591 536 614 671 730 680 680 a a 431 391 573 607 689 710 601 580 486 486 a a 16 Cronbach's Alpha = 654 (N=2) ACH_AFF3 17.16 ACH_AFF5 17.14 ACH_AFF6 17.19 ACH_AFF7 17.04 Cronbach's Alpha = 858 (N=4) ACH_COG3 27.36 ACH_COG4 27.37 ACH_COG5 27.53 ACH_COG6 27.56 ACH_COG7 27.52 ACH_COG8 27.76 Cronbach's Alpha = 857 (N=6) ACH_BEH1 25.56 ACH_BEH2 25.36 ACH_BEH3 25.40 ACH_BEH4 25.03 ACH_BEH5 24.98 ACH_BEH6 25.13 Cronbach’s Alpha = 808 (N=6) INN_AFF3 16.32 INN_AFF7 15.91 INN_AFF8 16.13 INN_AFF9 16.32 Cronbach's Alpha = 752 (N=4) INN_COG1 30.48 INN_COG2 30.79 INN_COG3 30.18 INN_COG5 30.09 INN_COG6 30.57 INN_COG7 30.58 INN_COG9 30.23 Cronbach's Alpha = 797 (N=7) INN_BEH1 23.40 INN_BEH2 23.74 INN_BEH3 23.75 INN_BEH4 23.34 INN_BEH5 23.10 INN_BEH6 22.86 Cronbach’s Alpha = 0.732 (N=6) EI1 28.17 11.147 11.751 11.148 11.501 654 728 730 708 842 811 808 817 27.721 27.788 28.661 28.932 30.119 30.991 718 726 647 689 587 508 819 817 832 825 843 857 22.384 21.845 21.569 21.868 21.401 22.031 442 583 575 612 650 558 808 774 776 768 759 779 10.092 10.110 9.009 8.842 453 510 658 583 746 715 634 675 31.054 32.424 31.331 31.854 31.401 32.381 31.756 539 487 590 542 494 518 525 769 778 760 768 778 773 771 22.431 20.994 22.463 21.672 23.671 22.968 439 502 440 546 431 444 703 684 702 671 704 700 32.020 628 883 17 EI2 27.81 EI3 27.78 EI4 27.92 EI5 27.65 EI6 27.72 Cronbach's Alpha = 889 (N=6) 30.478 31.293 30.600 32.538 33.448 771 759 747 719 622 859 862 863 868 883 Factor Analysis Independent variables KMO and Barlett’s Test and Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) were used for factor loading analysis on independent variables The value of KMO=.850 at p=.000 so we can move forward with EFA In the EFA results, the Eigenvalues at the 9th component was 1.095 (>1) while the Eigenvalues at the 10th component was 978 (