Software developers’ capabilities and entrepreneurial intention in ICT industry: A Vietnamese case

Software developers’ capabilities and entrepreneurial intention in ICT industry: A Vietnamese caseSoftware developers’ capabilities and entrepreneurial intention in ICT industry: A Vietnamese caseSoftware developers’ capabilities and entrepreneurial intention in ICT industry: A Vietnamese caseSoftware developers’ capabilities and entrepreneurial intention in ICT industry: A Vietnamese caseSoftware developers’ capabilities and entrepreneurial intention in ICT industry: A Vietnamese caseSoftware developers’ capabilities and entrepreneurial intention in ICT industry: A Vietnamese caseSoftware developers’ capabilities and entrepreneurial intention in ICT industry: A Vietnamese caseSoftware developers’ capabilities and entrepreneurial intention in ICT industry: A Vietnamese caseSoftware developers’ capabilities and entrepreneurial intention in ICT industry: A Vietnamese caseSoftware developers’ capabilities and entrepreneurial intention in ICT industry: A Vietnamese case

A Thesis for the Degree of Master

Software Developers’ Capabilities and Entrepreneurial Intention in ICT Industry:

A Vietnamese Case

By Doan Thi Thanh Hien

Department of Management Information Systems

Graduate School

GYEONGSANG NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

August, 2018

Software Developer’s Capabilities and Entrepreneurial Intention in ICT Industry:

A Vietnamese Case

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School

of the Gyeongsang National University

By DOAN THI THANH HIEN

In partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree

of Master in Management Information Systems

August, 2018

Prof Sung Eui Cho, Thesis Supervisor

Approved by the Committees of the Graduate School

of Gyeongsang National University in Partial Fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree

of Master of Business Administration

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I came to Korean to study Master in the department of Management Information systems from 2 years ago For me in this time, studying in other country is interesting experience but also difficult for me To this time, if it were not for the unconditional love, generosity, support and guidance from many people, I most certainly would not be the happy, optimistic, and confident person I am today Undertaking this Master in the department of Management Information systems means a great deal to me While I cannot individually thank everyone in this small part, I want each of him or her to know that they have and continue to teach and inspire me on a daily basis Firstly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor Prof Sung Eui Cho for the continuous support of my Master study and related research, for his patience, motivation, and immense knowledge His guidance helped me in all the time of research and writing of my thesis and papers I could not have imagined having a better advisor and mentor for my Master study Secondly, I must express my gratitude to all professors in my department: Prof Han-Seong Yoon, Prof DaeYul Jeong, Prof Dong Hee Yoo, Prof Jong Hwan Sub and Prof Buyng-Huyk Ahn Thank you for presenting a great lectures, all great suggestions and advices with tons of helpful and academic knowledge for me and other students

Thirdly, I would like to thank all friends in Korean, my labmates and my classmates who together share time, knowledge with me Their friendliness makes me feeling as I stayed at home Especially, I am very grateful to Dr Motahareh Zarefard who strongly assists me in my study as well as in all of my difficulties when staying in Korea Her prompt inspirations, timely suggestions with kindness, enthusiasm and dynamism have enabled me to complete my papers and thesis Thank you for being my teacher, friend and my older sister

Last but not least, I owe my special thanks to my parents and my family who always stay by

my side all my life Thank you for being so patient to me, for never giving up on me no matter what happens Especially, I want to thanks two important people in my life, it is my mother- Prof Dinh Ngoc Lan and my husband I feel a deep sense of gratitude and admire to my mother who was spend all her life for me and formed part of my vision and taught me the good things that really matter in life The lectures of my mother still provide persistent inspiration for my journey

in this life I love my mother and thank her so much Finally, I must express my gratitude to my husband Mr Nguyen Duc Quang who always support and encouragement me in my life and my work also

Doan Thi Thanh Hien

CONTENTS ABSTRACT

I Introduction 1

II Background 3

1 Literature review 4

1.1 Software developer’s capabilities 4

1.2 Entrepreneurial intention (EI) 5

2 Developing proportions 8

3 Research model 28

III Empirical study 29

1 Data collection 29

2 Measurement model development 34

IV Result of Analysis 36

1 Reliability and validity 37

1.1 Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) 39

1.2 Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) 41

2 Test of structure model 44

3 Hypotheses test 46

4 Comparison model test 50

V Summary of the Results 53

1 Discussions and conclusions 54

2 Limitations 56

3 Future research 57

REFERENCES 58

APPENDIX I 73

APPENDIX II 78

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Summary of definition 8

Table 2: Profile of respondents 30

Table 3: KMO and Bartlett's Test 39

Table 4: Exploratory Factor Analysis for independent variables 40

Table 5: Obtained of Confirmatory Factor Analysis( CFA) 42

Table 6: Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) 43

Table 7: Correlations 45

Table 8: Overall model fit 46

Table 9: Hypothesis test results 48

Table 10: Analysis result of comparison model 51

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Research model 29

Figure 2: Result of analysis 48

Figure 3: Result of comparison model without mediating factor 51

Figure 4: Result of comparison model with entrepreneurial self-efficacy 52

Figure 5: Result of comparison model with entrepreneurial motivation 52

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the relationship between entrepreneurs’ capabilities and start-up intentions in software industries particularly focusing on software developers’ capabilities For this study, five factors of technical skills, industry knowledge, creativity, cooperation and communication, benchmarking reflecting software developer's capabilities were adopted as independent variables In addition, two factors of entrepreneurial self- efficacy and entrepreneurial motivation were adopted as mediating factors in the relationship between independent factors and start-up intention Data were collected from entrepreneurs and employees in software developing companies in northern Vietnam and analyzed through structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine the relationship Results showed the significance of software developers’ capabilities for the development of entrepreneurial intentions through the mediating factors The results also revealed that benchmarking does not necessarily lead to entrepreneurial intention due to the important role of entrepreneurial self-efficacy

Key words: software developer's capabilities; entrepreneurial intention; entrepreneurial motivation; entrepreneurial self-efficacy; technical skills; industry knowledge; creativity;

cooperation and communication; benchmarking

of private business, entrepreneurship has contributed approximately 40% of GDP to the economy And one of the most central problems of entrepreneurship research is the definition of entrepreneurial behavior and Delmar (1996) said this is because it is inter-related to so many social science fields (economics, history, psychology, sociology, geography) and with each coming with

a definition that suits it The word “ENTREPRENEUR” has its origin during the 17th and 18thcentury in the French economics (Dees, 1998) And Watson had scientifically explained entrepreneurship by evaluating the nature of economics and commerce and posited a question “if entrepreneurs are born or made?” He expressed his opinion that an enterprise is an economic building block that enables an individual to undertake an economic activity Thus, an entrepreneur can be described as that individual that manages, takes and seeks opportunity and assumes risk in the enterprise (Watson) Having mentioned that entrepreneurial opportunities are said to be enormous and individuals just need to recognize them only, if they are willing to exploit them Obviously, entrepreneurship research has gotten to a level where the intention of individuals or as

a team should become an important thing and in addition, the study of entrepreneurial intention is important to entrepreneurship and firm creation

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Entrepreneurship is very important, but finding a goal and opportunities are the first things must be done for entrepreneurship In fact that, this time is a gold time to have business opportunities in IT industry when more aspects of our lives become reliant on computer software, researchers and businessman also regard information technology (IT) as a competitive tool in a business environment In IT industry, there are many areas that can be mentioned and researched, however, focusing research on human especially developers will bring the more positive effects Nowadays, there is an ever-growing demand for software developers In some parts of the world, the actual numbers of software developer vacancies are expected to rise by up to 30% by the year

2020, according to Computerworld In fact, in IT and software industry, Software developers are responsible for designing the computer programmes and operating systems that we use in everyday life From word processors, games and websites, software developers are the people that design these systems so we can use them easily and more efficiently As a software developer in the early stages of a career, much of role will be focussed on the design, maintenance, and implementation

of technology As the career develops, developers will move away from many of the day to day aspects towards project management and strategic roles as employees of the company Software developers will then support the company when integrating the software into a business After that, they will provide ongoing management support and recommend system updates

We know that IT is a core ingredient of nearly any part of our everyday life Many studies

in the past have tried to tell about the entrepreneurial intention factors and processes that become entrepreneurs, also they have attempted to understand the role of IT in business, and more researchers are paying attention to the notion of IT capabilities, including developer's capabilities, entrepreneurial capability, and administration capability in business However, there are few works that have investigated how software employees especially software developer can become entrepreneurs in their business Moreover, software developer of research has considered a vast

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number of factors that affect project outcomes, from process and tools to programming languages and requirement elicitation They rarely give consideration but only to one of the most fundamental components of a software developer Specifically, what makes a software developer great? This basic question is at the foundation of nearly every part of our world’s rapidly growing software ecosystem: employers want to hire and retain great developers, universities want to train great developers, and young developers want to become great entrepreneurs in the future And yet our understanding of what characteristics define software developer expertise still lacks specificity, breadth, and rigor In general, for these reasons, we are involved in trying to seek answers to these problems Specifically, identifying how is the relationship between software developer's capabilities and entrepreneurial intention in ICT industry

The paper would love to bring essential knowledge to researchers and practitioners in IT field Moreover, it could bring a more open minded view for businessman and developers in understanding the new way of success The experiment is done in Vietnam, an opening economy,

a developing country and a potential place for IT companies so this study will make new opportunities for people who want to try in the both areas IT and entrepreneurship The rest of this research will be as follows First, the paper will provide theoretical background, including software developer’s capabilities related information and the basic theory of research model After that, the paper would like to present research framework of the effect of software developer’s capabilities on entrepreneurial intention before discussing research method Finally, the results will be concluded and discussed together with research limitations and future expected investigations

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1 Literature review

1.1 Software developer’s capabilities

Everything in today’s world revolved around technology and firms are confronting an changing and increasingly complex environment The software that companies utilize to manage their business operations is becoming more of a source of competitive advantage The ability to

ever-be able to analyze significant amounts of data quickly and efficiently to provide the business with information and management systems can save time and help spot sales opportunities For some sectors, this type of software is integral to operations You know that app you love on your phone? That computer game that kept you transfixed for hours as a middle schooner That program helps you budget and track expenditures? Software developers created all of them According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), software developers are the creative, brainstorming geniuses behind computer programs A software developer defined as a person who performs some or all

of feasibility studies, software project planning, requirements elicitation and analysis, high-level design, detailed program design, coding, testing, debugging, documentation, implementation, and maintenance of commercially oriented information systems (Bekesi, 1997:7) While some software developers may focus on a specific program or app, others create giant networks or underlying systems that help trigger and run other programs, other, entrepreneurs who can know

or do not know how to run or develop IT products in IT market Which means that to succeed in today’s hyper-competitive environment with the growing power of technology, industry and society we need IT developers and entrepreneurs who have necessary capabilities for the business process The concept of capability has been deemed relevant over the years, which can be attested

by its adoption in varied domains In terms of Information technology and software, besides the capabilities of leaders, the capabilities of developer are very important The individual capability has been found to be the most significant determinant of performance among software developers (Brooks, 1987; Rasch and Tosi, 1992)

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The prior researchers identified programming capabilities as well as human capabilities, like the ‘ability to work with others’ Bock—Google’s vice president of people operations—indicated that a software developer’s ability to learn on the job was critical, also claiming that human judgment, inspiration, motivation, and creativity were more important than technical knowledge Similarly, McConnell argued that effective developers, in addition to technical skills, had various personality traits like being humble about their creativity, and communication capability Lee and Han studied skill requirements for entry-level programmers/analysts They found that application development, software, social and business skills were highly valued, and recommended that knowledge of technological trends, knowledge of business functions and general problem solving skills are taken into programs of future Information Systems (IS)/Information Technology (IT) (Lethbridge, 2000) found that a decreased level of importance is being place on continuous mathematics and basic science and those new areas of emphasis, such as web-related skills, are emerging (Fang, Lee and Koh, 2005) found that personal/interpersonal skills like creativity were more important than core IT skills and organizational knowledge Conversely, Abraham et al found that technical skills were the most desired in new hires They also reported that these technical skills were more likely to be outsourced and that the skills associated with the “business content” found in IS curricula were more likely to retain in IT major (Kim ,2006) found that soft skills like management, communication and cooperation should be given more emphasis in IS/IT curricula

1.2 Entrepreneurial intention (EI)

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The classical approaches assume that the business spirit is the key to individual prosperity The classics were less preoccupied by what can be considered psychological stimuli for starting a business, assuming that the individual interest and, eventually, the exogenous innovation capacity was enough They did not say anything about the individual characteristics, the influence of the family, the type of education or about other factors that were much later discussed by Ludwig von Mises in Human Action and subsequently in the behavioral approaches of some authors, such as Herbert Simon, Vernon Smith or Robert Shiller The entrepreneurial intentions of an individual can defined as his or her alleged desire to start a business or to form a new organization in the future (Gartner, 1988) Current analyses regarding entrepreneurial intentions focused on at least two important directions The Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1982) and the Model of Entrepreneurial Event (Shapero, A., 1982) have been found to be both robust to empirical tests and to converge toward a similar interpretation of the determinants of the entrepreneurial intention (Krueger, N.F, 2000) (Ajzen, 1991) considered that entrepreneurial intentions can be explained

by the individual attitudes towards behavior, by the Sustainability subjective norms and the perception of behavioral control Instead, Shapero and (Sokol, 8) were focused on the perception

of desirability, on the propensity to act and on the perception of feasibility Both sociological analysis models underline a number of traits and perceptions of individuals that lead them to make certain decisions favorable to entrepreneurship Since none of the models are exhaustive, there were efforts to combine them One of these attempts belongs to (Krueger, 2000), who developed a model of entrepreneurial intentions He considered that the personal or situational endogenous factors influence the perceived social norms and the perceived desirability,

psycho-as well psycho-as the perceived self-efficacy and perceived fepsycho-asibility, which, taken together, have a clear influence on entrepreneurial intentions

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Specifically, intention to start-up a business or entrepreneurial intention is defined as the commitment to performing behavior that is necessary to physically start the business venture (Krueger Jr, Reilly and Carsrud, 2000) Entrepreneurial intentions assumed to predict individual's choice to found their own firms (Ajzen, 1991) Meanwhile, Krueger and Carsrud (1993) defined the term employment status choice as the individual decision to enter an occupation as a waged/salaried individual, or a self-employed one In other words, it is a motivation for an individual to become self-employed as contrast to organizational employment Intentions are assumed to capture the motivational factors that influence a behavior; they are indications of how hard people are willing to try, of how much of an effort they are planning to exert, in order to perform the behavior In general, the greater the intention, the stronger is the motivation to engage

in entrepreneurial behavior (Ajzen, 1991) Therefore, investigating what factors determine the entrepreneurial intention is a crucial issue in the entrepreneurship research For instance, Raposo (2006; 2008) found that individuals who evidence more propensities for the start-ups creation seem to possess self-confidence and leadership capacity

The independent variable classified in this study is software developer’s capabilities with the components of Technical skills (TS), Industry knowledge (IK), Creativity (CR), Cooperation and communication (CAC), Benchmarking (BM) in promoting entrepreneurship intention The dependent variable is the Entrepreneurial intention (EI) Entrepreneurial self-efficacy and motivation are mediating variables Emphasizing that the definitions used in this study primarily adopted from previous studies and researches, this paper receives benefits from others, learns to avoid occurred mistakes and expectedly arranges a good base for the analysis Table 1 summarizes the operational definitions of the variables in this study

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Table 1: Summary of definition

Technical skills

That is skill, expertise or technical competence acquired through training and education or learned on the job and are specific to each work setting related to the specific field

Medina, 2010; Damooei, Maxey and Watkins, 2008

2009

Creativity

Creativity is often understood as the process to use the ability, orientation, state of mind or set of skills to make something new

Cropley, 1999; Ward, Finke, and Smith, 1995

L Suchman, 1987; Lee and Jones,

2008

Benchmarking

Benchmarking as a systematic approach through which organizations can measure their performances against the best-in-class organizations and it is a powerful and effective tool to learn from others in order to get the excellence

Attiany, 2009; Leibfried and McNair, 1992; Besterfield, 2011

Entrepreneurial

Self-efficacy

Refers to the confidence an individual has in his or her competencies to successfully fulfill various entrepreneurial tasks throughout the different developmental stages of a start-up

Izquierdo & Buelens, 2011; Zarefard & Cho, 2018; Chen, 1998; Naktiyok, 2010

Entrepreneurial

motivation

Entrepreneurs’ perceptions of their own abilities and the relevant business environment, the specific business idea, and feeling activated, driven, incentivized, inspired by goals

of the entrepreneur

Estay, Durrieu & A Taormina & Lao, 2007; Naffziger, Hornsby & Kuratko, 1994

Entrepreneurial

intentions

Individual's desire and attitude to start a business or to form

a new organization in the future

Gartner, 1988; Ajzen, 1991; Krueger Jr, Reilly,

& Carsrud, 2000

2 Developing proportions

to work properly and efficiently, as well as all technical matters It can be known and understood more easily as can be seen clearly with the naked eye (Yahya and Muhammad Rashid, 2001) Technical skills are skills that require a combination of specific knowledge and skills of the work done using the body to achieve the target (Damooei, Maxey and Watkins, 2008) In the working environment, technical skills normally refer to technical procedures or practical tasks that are typically easy to observe, quantify, and measure The skills are tangible, specific, and usually teachable such as typing 50 words per minute or changing tires (Roselina, 2009) In other views, technical skills are the ability to perform work in a technically competent manner and to monitor

it in an independent and critical manner (Mohd Fauzi, 2000) Technical skills can be acquired in

a formal and nonformal way In a formal way, Medina (2010) explained that the common way is through academic channels, namely through the institutions of higher learning In addition, attending courses and seminars organized by world bodies such as International Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and obtaining certification through this channel, is one of the ways

to obtain technical skills The nonformal method is through a progressive tutorial was written, electronic, and practical way that can be done to obtain the technical skills (Medina, 2010) Consistent involvement is needed to improve the technical knowledge in the field of endeavor so that skills are constantly improved

Software developers can encounter numerous problems and difficulties in their jobs and technical skills challenges for software developers Software developers must have some

In terms of entrepreneurship, according to Ashley-Cotleur, King and Solomon (2009) there are a number of individual factors that motivate a person’s decision to become an entrepreneur including technical skills, experiences and knowledge These factors will make some people more self-efficacy and have more motivation than other people Papulova and Makros (2007) find that most entrepreneurs are technicians, require skills in the field of management and especially technical skills seem to be lacking when it comes to business development over the long term Papulova (2007) recognized four areas of managerial skills imperative for entrepreneurs working

at Small and medium-sized enterprises including technical skills and others Addition, Freel (1999)

Industry knowledge (IK)

There are many who argue that we are moving towards a new economy or new society, in which the role and significance of knowledge as an input to economic processes have fundamentally changed In some cases, it is argued that these rests on advances in information technology are leading to a ‘paradigm shift’ The idea here seems to be that there are basic changes

in economic functioning, and changes in the economic rules of the game, for both business and policymakers

However, what does it mean to speak of the 'knowledge'? At the outset, it must be say that there is no coherent definition, let alone theoretical concept, of this term: Knowledge is information acquired through sensory input: Reading, watching, listening, touching, etc The concept of knowledge refers to familiarity with information and theoretical concepts Knowledge can be transfer from one person to another or it can be self-acquire through observation and study Knowledge is also defined as the justified belief that increases an individual's or a group's capacity for effective action (Huber, 1991; Nonaka, 1994) Knowledge can be transfer from a source to a receiver However, in order for effective knowledge transfer to take place, knowledge should be expressed in a form that is "interpretable by receivers" (Alavi and Leidner, 2001) For example, the knowledge of developers is knowledge of computer science fundamentals; object-oriented

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programming, design patterns, algorithms and data structures, how computers work at a low level, hardware, operating systems, networking, databases & much more stuff

At the outset, it must be said that there is no coherent definition, let alone theoretical concept,

of this term: it is at best a widely-used metaphor, rather than a clear concept But based on the previous studies about knowledge, in our study, we propose that we will divide industry knowledge into three parts including foundation knowledge, market knowledge and entrepreneurial knowledge Firstly, foundation knowledge of developers was mentioned above Secondly, when talking about market knowledge, it is about understanding the market context in which a business operates Capabilities in market knowledge are usually a requirement of the leadership competencies of strategic orientation, commercial orientation, and customer impact In ICT industry, at basic levels of performance, developers as leaders understand obvious industry trends, the company's products and its customers Middle-level performers see emerging trends

At high levels, understand relationships among the various elements of the market and see how trends could create new customers, affect dealings with competitors and cause potentially profitable changes Finally, entrepreneurial knowledge speaking simply put, entrepreneurial knowledge refers to an individual’s appreciation of the concepts, skills and mentality expected of

an entrepreneur (Jack and Anderson, 1999) Massad and Tucker (2009) articulate that this knowledge can be acquired and developed through consistent exposure to entrepreneurship activities Accordingly, entrepreneurial learning is associated with the development of entrepreneurial knowledge Massad and Tucker (2009) identify two distinct types of entrepreneurial knowledge that complement each other when determining new venture creation processes One of the two factors relates to individuals’ ability to recognize entrepreneurial opportunities This involves the discovery and evaluation of new venture opportunities In fact that, foundation knowledge about IT or software very necessary However, studying and training

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more about the market and entrepreneurial knowledges it would provide a platform for developers

to action, from identifying social problems (projects) in communities to finding the entrepreneurial solution through entrepreneurial approach, from identifying competitors in market or target market for IT projects, it is more likely that people would better appreciate the entrepreneurship process Linan (2004) particularly explains that exposure to the business environment makes people more self-efficacy about their own abilities to become entrepreneurs Moreover, Martin (2013) found a statistically significant relationship between knowledge and skills with entrepreneurship intention Past studies have proposed that knowledge provides the entrepreneur with the capacity to identify opportunities (Shane and Venkataraman, 2000) Knowledge and experience have been well established as a factor that facilitates entrepreneurship (Ardichvili, 2003) Entrepreneurs are different from other people both in their structure of their knowledge and the process of gathering, organizing, transferring, and using the knowledge to lead their decisions and actions Therefore, (Sánchez JC, 2012; Kickul J, 2009; Holcomb TR, Ireland RD, Holmes

RM, Hitt MA, 2009; Brännback M, Carsrud A, 2009,) entrepreneurial motivation enable individuals to use the knowledge that they constructed through their experiences and social interactions to guide their decision making and behavior in different stages of the entrepreneurship process In particular, for the selection to become an entrepreneur, entrepreneurship is the process

of thinking and constructing the knowledge that enables individuals to assess their abilities to perform entrepreneurial tasks and roles and choose whether to pursue an entrepreneurial career Thus, the following hypotheses were formulated:

H2a: Industry knowledge positively affects entrepreneurial self-efficacy towards entrepreneurial intention in ICT industry

After exhaustive research, Morgan (1953) listed the universal factor for creativity to be a novelty (Cropley, 1999) Novelty requires originality and newness There must be something fresh

to the idea Sternberg and Lubert (1995) proposed that novelty must be coupled with appropriateness for something to be considered creative Novelty can be the coalescence of any two or more different things or thoughts For instance, Damien Hirst is a controversial artist who has sliced animals into fragments, but many people do not consider this creative even though it is novel and original Many people do not recognize the factor of appropriateness in his work and consider it feckless Although creativity can be seen in the products, it can also be considered in terms of the process In summary, that creativity is often understood as a mental quality, ability, orientation, state of mind or set of skills This means that psychologists deliver the most advanced understandings of creativity Creativity implies novel and unconventional thinking, motivation and persistence, the ability to work with vague and poorly defined problems, and heuristic rather than algorithmic thinking Creativity is studied in creative arts: music painting, literature, etc Many researchers have also been interested in creativity in the systems development process They usually consider creativity to be an important asset to a software developer but are less good at

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specifying exactly why this should be the case In a software developer, creativity could be understood as a set of personal competencies, in the same way, that professional skills like object modeling, algorithm design and experience with a particular programming language are understood as competences Thus a developer or project manager could understand their existing creativity competencies and set out to improve them Creativity competencies are concerned both with solving problems and with recognizing opportunities This is an important distinction Moreover, Ward, Finke, and Smith (1995) defined creativity in the products made the differences in people, the pressures that motivate, and the processes behind creativity Many perceive individuals as "being creative" or not, citing outstanding examples such as Einstein or Picasso as possessing uniquely creative personalities which refer to a set of personal characteristics that uniquely influence one's cognitions, emotions, confidence (self- efficacy), motivations, and behaviors in various situations The products made are new and fresh which are the clearest example of creativity However, there are defining subtleties in people; for example, some people are considered to be more creative than others, and in addition to inherent differences in people, there are different motivations for creativity (e.g., some people are driven to create) Other, there are several studies have indicated that have a relationship between self-efficacy and creativity of individuals (Phelan and Young, 2003; Tierney and Farmer, 2002) which showed that some people are considered to be more creative than others, they will fell more self-efficacy or confidence about themselves Finally, the process for creativity can be different Some people seclude themselves while others seek guidance and dialogue According to Ward (2004), novel and useful ideas are the fundamental for entrepreneurship since the ability to seek potential opportunity and idea generation to innovate are critical attributes for an entrepreneur (Schumpeter,1934) For instance, entrepreneurial creativity leads to self-employment which provides individuals the platform to express their creativity and to build their own business enterprise (Feldman and Boleno,

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2000) High level of creativity in individual shows a strong positive influence over entrepreneurial intention (Hamidi, 2008) The more creative an individual, the more tendencies in which he or she

is involved in entrepreneurship and this is likely to influence his or her level and type of novelty

in his or her business (Koellinger, 2008) A study showed that individuals who have more ideas generated and higher quality of ideas produced increased their entrepreneurial intention (Molaei, 2014) The ability to generate ideas is consistent with divergent thinking which leads to an increase

in the individual having divergent thinking to positively predict entrepreneurial intention (Batchelor and Butch, 2012) Individuals with creativity in providing useful ideas towards solving significant problems that people are willing to pay for, reflect the high value of the ideas to be captured through entrepreneurial activities (Kavanagh and Hisrich, 2010)

Creativity, in the form of the ability to effectively generate novel solutions to relevant problems, can be a source of significant competitive advantage, especially in rapidly changing environments Creativity is important to entrepreneurs because it is the first stage in the process

of innovation, providing the stimulus for opportunity discovery and new venture creation Based

on the above discussion, we present the following hypothesis:

H3a: Creativity positively affects entrepreneurial self-efficacy towards entrepreneurial intention

in ICT industry

H3b: Creativity positively affects entrepreneurial motivation towards entrepreneurial intention in ICT industry

Cooperation and communication (CAC)

As humans, we have several limitations that affect our capability to create almost any piece

of software When working at high levels of abstraction—as when writing requirements, designing software, writing code, or creating test cases—we are slow and error-prone Consequently, we

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must work together to complete large projects in reasonable time and have other people try to catch our mistakes The two most important such skills are cooperation and communication capability needed for this situation Based on (K Bauknecht, 1995) we use the terms communication and cooperation as follows:

Communication encompasses the process of transfer and exchange of information that takes place between communication partners If the exchange of information serves to coordinate activities among team members, then this type of communication serves as the basis for the coordination of processes A lot of the time of a software developer is spent communicating with

others: with clients, peers, managers, suppliers, and others Communication is indeed the basis of requirements Documentation is the most concrete example of communication Sadly, managers

at companies often complain that engineers, even those trained at best universities, are deficient

in both written and oral communication skills Communication is more than using a language according to correct grammar, in writing reports or in making speeches What is difficult is to choose the right level of abstraction depending on the subject of discussion and the communication partner Modeling skills are also an important requirement for successful communication Indeed, since requirements-related problems are the most costly problems during software development, and communication problems are a major source of such requirements problems, we must invest

a lot more in educating software engineers in the area of communication There are probably different kinds of communication techniques required to interact with peer software engineers, with those in other disciplines, with managers, with clients, and so on In all cases, however, listening is an important part of communication Certainly, good communication skills can help one be a better team player, and reduce the communication overhead, but good communication skills are not enough

to keep in mind is that teams develop software and a software developer is only one of a number

of people working on that team Therefore, the developer must learn not only how to produce his

or her modules, and how his or her modules must fit with modules produced by others, but also how he or she must fit with others people in team or organization

Moreover, researching about a relationship between skills of software developers and entrepreneurial intention, we noticed that communication and cooperation are important in every

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step of a business development, especially in the early entrepreneurial phases (Holt and Macpherson, 2010; Lee and Jones, 2008; Roodt, 2005) Davidsson (1991) stated that starting a new business venture and business-related skills, exposure and education are highly interrelated Furthermore, Papulova (2007) recognized four areas of managerial skills imperative for entrepreneurs working at Small and medium-sized enterprises, technical skills, cooperation skills, conceptual skills and communication skills These skills have also been labeled social skills in previous entrepreneurship research (Baron, 2007) In many cases, the major resource the entrepreneur has in the start‐up of the business is her-or himself (Brush et al., 2001, 2008) and the higher the social skills of the entrepreneur, the better the financial outcome for the business (Baron and Markman, 2003; Baron and Tang, 2009) Therefore, we make the following hypotheses:

H4a: Cooperation and communication positively affects entrepreneurial self-efficacy towards entrepreneurial intention in ICT industry

H4b: Cooperation and communication positively affects entrepreneurial motivation towards entrepreneurial intention in ICT industry

Benchmarking (BM)

In term of business, starting a new business or project leads managers to make decisions and choose strategies that will then apply to their company Most often, they take decisions only on instinct, but there are also companies that use benchmarking studies Benchmarking is a technique employed by managers to improve the operations of their own department or organization (Leibfried and McNair, 1992) Using this benchmarking process, organizations try to find the best practices applied in a business and identify ways to increase their performance and competitiveness Thus, managers gather information about market trends and about competitors,

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especially about the leaders in the field, and use these information in finding ideas and setting of guidelines for development Benchmarking studies are often used in businesses of commerce, real estate, and industry and high-tech software

The word 'benchmark' originated from a surveyor's mark cut to indicate a level for the determination of altitude In this sense, a benchmark is an absolute measure A distinction should

be drawn between this usage and `benchmarking' as a management technique, in which measurement is primarily comparative Benchmarking's origins have been linked to the Japanese word`dantotsu' meaning 'striving for the best of the best', and also to Sun Tzu's Art of War and the aphorism 'if you know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles' Modem definitions of benchmarking are sometimes less poetic but more informative Benchmarking has been defined in various ways Benchmarking can be defined as a continuous process of measuring of products, services and business practices of a company, compared with its best performing competitors and with companies recognized as being performant (Rank Xerox company) Also, the concept of benchmarking has been discussed intensively in business strategy Many scholars defined benchmarking, such as Besterfield (2011) stated that benchmarking is the systematic search for best practices, innovative ideas, and highly effective operating procedures

to learn from others what they do right and then imitate it to avoid reinventing the wheel According to Codling (1996), benchmarking is an ongoing process of measuring and improving products, services and practices against the best that can be identified worldwide Goetsch and Davis (1997) also suggested that benchmarking is a tool that helps in continuously monitoring the processes in the organization, and helps in learning and adopting the best practices of the best-in-class organizations The benchmarking exercise relies on the design and execution of a series of tests for the verification of technological systems, rationalization through comparisons and final selection according to customer needs (Zairi, 1992) Anand and Kodali, (2008), argue that

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benchmarking is defined in various ways by different authors the benchmarking technique includes measurement, comparison, identification of best practices, implementation and improvement Attiany (2009) defined benchmarking as a systematic approach through which organizations can measure their performances against the best-in-class organizations and it is a powerful and effective tool to learn from others in order to get the excellence Traditionally, benchmarking involved the particular instrument to help companies to develop the strength and reduce their weaknesses (Oakland, 2003; Van Schalkwyk, 1998)

In ICT industry, in simpler terms, the benchmarking capability of a developer is capability comparing and evaluating the abilities of a software application with other developers in their company and competitors in other companies The intent of benchmarking is to compare and generate ideas for improving processes of software application or projects, approaches and technologies to reduce costs, increase profits and strengthen customer loyalty and satisfaction with products Comparing and finding the relationship between benchmarking capability of developer and benchmarking of manager or entrepreneurs, we will considering the theory of planned behavior (TPB) (Ajzen, 1985; Madden, Ellen and Ajzen, 1992), an expectancy-value model, is particularly appropriate for examining the planning aspect of benchmarking since, as its name implies, the TPB is a theory for making predictions regarding the formulation and execution of behavioral plans The TPB posits three factors (each represented by a set of beliefs), as predictive

of behavioral intention and behavior itself: attitude; subjective norm; perceived behavioral control (self-efficacy) Benchmarking is a suitable behavior on which to test the TPB, as benchmarking is

a complex activity where managers' capacity to act is at least partly constrained by social and organizational factors Benchmarking is different from other behaviors investigated previously under the TPB Benchmarking is nested within a dynamic organizational environment in which there are multiple stakeholders The complex nature of benchmarking when compared to behaviors

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usually investigated under the TPB provides a novel application of the theory into the area of management As an extension of the TPB, it was predicted that prior experience with benchmarking would increase the overall predictive power of the three TPB factors (attitude, subjective norm and self-efficacy) as well as the relative influence of attitude on intention to business Doll and Ajzen (1992) found that the power of the TPB to predict intention was greater among people who had prior experience with the behavior under examination We surmised that this principle would apply also to developers who have benchmarking capability Moreover, TPB factors that have a positive effect on entrepreneurial intention and have been prove by previous researchers Based on this discussion, the overall power of the three TPB factors (attitude, subjective norm and self-efficacy) to predict entrepreneurial intention was expected to be greater for people who had been involved in benchmarking projects than for people with no experience in benchmarking Consequently, in accordance with previous findings (Regan and Fazio, 1977; Fazio and Zanna, 1978; Steffan and Gruber, 1991; Doll and Ajzen, 1992) it was predicted that past experience with benchmarking would increase the reliability of the motivation and self-efficacy

in the relationship with entrepreneurial In sum, we expected that capability with benchmarking would make the self-efficacy and motivation factors the strongest predictor of the three TPB factors toward entrepreneurial intention Benchmarking is a significant tool can be used to learn from others, also helps the organization to compare processes and procedures with the best practices of the best-in-class performer to improve the performance of the company in order to achieve competitive advantage, so the art of benchmarking will no doubly gain more momentum

as the quality movement becomes the approach to modern competitiveness Benchmarking is very important tool in making decisions for continuous improvement activities, the findings also showed that benchmarking helps the firms to shift the corporate mindset from relative complacency to a strong sense of urgency for ongoing improvement to reach competitive advantage Thus, the following hypotheses will be study:

Entrepreneurial Self-efficacy (ESE)

Self-efficacy (SE) is the primary focus of social learning theory (Bandura, 1997) It explains

an individual’s behavior based on the trust they have in their self-assessed abilities, which affects their intentions and efforts towards a planned activity (Chen, 1998; Naktiyok, 2010) Entrepreneurial self-efficacy refers to the confidence an individual has in his or her competencies

to successfully fulfill various entrepreneurial tasks throughout the different developmental stages

of a start-up (Izquierdo & Buelens, 2011) An important influential factor of self-efficacy is the preference for a certain behavior (Zarefard & Cho, 2018) This construct (self-efficacy) has been widely used in diverse fields of study, including career choice But in recent time, self-efficacy has been applied to the pursuit of entrepreneurial activities, perseverance in difficult fields, and personal effectiveness (Markman Balkin & Baron, 2002; cited in Akanbi, 2013) People take decisions and actions based on the belief that they are capable of doing great things, and this can radically change his/her life Thus, Bandura believes the SE is a key factor of success in the academic, professional, interpersonal and health plan

Many studies have been conducted to explore the relationship between entrepreneurial efficacy and entrepreneurial intention Their findings demonstrate a significant relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intention, signifying that individuals with higher entrepreneurial self-efficacy tend to show a higher level of entrepreneurial intentions (Boyd and Vozikis, 1994; Jung, 2001; Piperopoulos and Dimov, 2015; Scott and Twomey, 1988;

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Tsai, 2016) More specifically, entrepreneurial self-efficacy is defined as the degree to which one believes that he or she is able to successfully start a new business venture Past research can be used to link entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intentions Hacket and Bet projected that (Bandura’s, 1977) theory of self-efficacy may be applied to determine the vocational inclinations of individuals Intentions are assumed to capture the essence of stimulating factors that influence behavior They are signals of how intensely individuals are prepared to perform and how much effort they are prepared to commit to carrying out the expected behavior Basically, the more robust the intent, the more probable it is to be able to foretell the anticipated behavior (Ajzen, 1991).Empirical findings indicate that self-efficacy is highly involved in the career decision-making process By other hands, (Zhao, Seibert and Hill, 2005) developed a study focused to develop and test a set of hypotheses in which entrepreneurial self-efficacy mediates the relationship between individual-level antecedent factors and entrepreneurial intentions.The Zhao and colleagues’ results provided evidence that individuals choose to become entrepreneurs most directly because they are high in entrepreneurial self-efficacy— the belief that they can succeed

in this role Also, their results supported the critical mediating role of entrepreneurial self-efficacy

in entrepreneurial intentions Analysis of the influence of self-efficacy on entrepreneurial intentions need to have a different approach to clarifying entrepreneurial efficacy and it considers the broader human competencies associated with new venture development This is based on the postulation that human competency assessments are less dependent on the specification and complexity of particular new venture entry domains Drawing from writings by Mintzberg & Waters and Chandler & Jansen identified five such competencies based on the three primary roles

of the entrepreneur: the entrepreneurial, managerial, and technical-functional In the entrepreneurial role, business founders need have knowledge about their environment and communication to their customers to find new opportunities, and devise methods to exploit opportunities for the benefit of a new form Mintzberg & Waters Two competencies are involved

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here First, entrepreneurs must possess the human/conceptual competency like flexibility and creativity to recognize unique opportunities, and second, they require the drive to take the venture from conceptualization through to fulfillment In the managerial role, there are also two broad competencies: leadership and cooperation skills (Pavet, 1983) and the communication competence

to receive the support of members (Pavet, 1983) In the technical–functional role, business founders must have some specialized expertise in the industry within which the firm will operate (Timmons, 1987 and Chandler, G and Jansen, E, 1992) like software technical skills in IT industry Based on this logic, we argue that high levels of entrepreneurial self-efficacy positively affect entrepreneurial intentions by fomenting positive capabilities of individuals toward entrepreneurial intention Thus, we have derived the following hypothesis:

H6: Entrepreneurial self-efficacy positively affects entrepreneurial intentions in ICT industry

Entrepreneurial motivation (EM)

Feeling activated, driven, incentivized, inspired or an impulse to be moved to do something can be explained as someone being motivated Someone who feels no inspiration, incentive or driver to be moved to do something is characterized as unmotivated (Ryan and Deci, 1990) Thereby, motivation is a desire to achieve a goal or value (Locke, 2000; Ryan and Deci, 1990; Crumbaugh and Maholick, 24, 1964) The motivational process is something that happens every day and everywhere as it is part of natural processes in the brain In every decision or action, the brains subconsciously evaluate the opportunities and motivate a decision or action Everyone who work or socialize with others are motivated, though the question remains how motivated they feel for certain tasks Everyone faces the task of fostering or more or less motivation in oneself and those surrounding them Motivation is a broad and complex field with many various theories

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(Ryan and Deci, 1990) Scholars have classified motivation as a “unitary phenomenon” (Ryan and Deci, 1990) that varies from low levels to greater levels Recently motivation increased in popularity among entrepreneurship scholars as one of several driving forces behind entrepreneurs and their ventures (Amabile et al, 1996) The interest of entrepreneurial traits has also increased among psychology-based researchers (Baum & Locke, 2004) Due to its importance researchers has examined a number of factors influencing the outcome of the venture (Collins, 2004) and Motivation is argued to be one of these factors (Carsrud and 32 Bränback, 2009)

Entrepreneurial motivation plays a dominant role in psychological thr oughout the entrepreneurial process, any entrepreneurship links cannot continue without motivation Entrepreneurial motivation is determined by entrepreneurs’ perceptions of their environment and their own abilities (Estay, Durrieu and Akhter, 2013), personal characteristics, the personal environment (Taormina and Lao, 2007), the relevant business environment, the specific business idea, and the goals of the entrepreneur (Naffziger, Hornsby and Kuratko, 1994) Both entrepreneurial intention and entrepreneurial motivation are shaped by personal and environmental factors Although motivations are a crucial factor, able to influence both entrepreneurial intention and attitude, given the evidence provided by the literature, it seems limitative to refer to perceived feasibility as only individual motivations The presence of a link between intention and motivation has been widely recognized (Ryan, 2000), and it has been argued that the relationship between motivations and intentions is not unidirectional (Carsrud, 2011) Elfving et al Elfving proposes a revised model of entrepreneurial intentions in which motivations, together with goals and opportunity evaluation, represent a main antecedent Jordaan investigates and finds the presence of a (causal) relationship between motivations and entrepreneurial intention Two decades of empirical research have generated a great number of studies that demonstrated the positive relationship between self-efficacy and different motivational outcomes

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in clinical, educational, and organizational settings (Bandura, 1986, 1997; Stajkovic and Luthans, 1998) First of all, self-efficacy goes beyond the traditional motivational approaches and in itself provides an eclectic extension of these approaches and could, based on its predictive power and demonstrated strong relationship with entrepreneurial intention Viewed superficially, self-efficacy appears similar to self-esteem, expectancy, locus of control, and attribution concepts of personality and motivation, however, self-efficacy beliefs emphasize an assessment capability (can I do this?) as opposed to a concern with outcome expectations (if I do this what will happen?) (Stajkovic and Luthans, 1998) To understand and apply self-efficacy effectively one needs to understand these subtle differences and see how the self-efficacy construct can be incorporated more fully into entrepreneurship In addition, motivation is a significant factor in directing an individual into an entrepreneurial life path Yet, in order to choose such a path, one must believe that it will allow the attainment of one’s goals As van Praag (1999) points out, several economists (e.g., Schumpeter, Knight, etc.) dealing with entrepreneurship have recognized the role of uncertainty and self-confidence in entrepreneurship For example, Knight (1921) emphasized that people differ with respect to self-confidence He asserted that entrepreneurs must bear uncertainty, which permits no objective calculation of the probability of success Thus he felt that self-confidence differentiates individuals, and in particular, it distinguishes entrepreneurs from others Knight’s concept of self-confidence is closely related to self-efficacy, defined by Bandura (1994)

as task-specific self-confidence Moreover, there are many researchers has generated a great number of studies that demonstrated the positive relationship between self-efficacy and different motivational towards entrepreneurial intention (Bandura, 1986, 1997; Stajkovic and Luthans, 1998) When people are faced with setbacks, self-efficacy influence our choices, enthusiasm, effort and perseverance, meanwhile it could also affect our faith to successfully achieve the target (Boyd and Vozikis, 1994) Levander and Raccuia (2001) found that self-efficacy is a significant cognitive variables evaluate entrepreneurial behave According to the intention model, we think

The above considerations led us to formulate the following hypothesis:

H7: Entrepreneurial motivation positively affects entrepreneurial intention in ICT industry

3 Research model

After a detail review of the literature, considering the research problem, and a through review

of the relevant theories and models, a theoretical framework has been proposed to test the model for the research topic " Software developer ’s capabilities and entrepreneurial motivation in IT industry" hypotheses were developed in the model with the following constructs The exogenous variable was considered as software developer’s capabilities that included the components of technical skills, industry knowledge, creativity, cooperation & communication, benchmarking and positioning Furthermore, two variables were identified as mediating variables including entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial motivation; the endogenous variable examined

in this study was the entrepreneurial intention of the Software developer in IT industry The following is the research model (refer Fig 1)

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Figure 1: Research model

III Empirical study

1 Data collection

With a population of approximately 95 million, Vietnam is an important regional market for both global technology vendors and for homegrown entrepreneurs The latter is getting more encouragement to innovate as the country modernizes and adopts international standards in areas such as, communications, and infrastructure and education technologies The industry is still in its fledgling development stage, given the country’s relatively late adoption of the internet Furthermore, the lack of education and training skills for IT developers, IT engineers is still an obstacle to scale Despite this, the ICT industry has seen promising annual growth rates on the back of growing demand from other industries, higher disposable incomes and rapidly growing internet penetration rates In our study, besides targeting on specific software developer in IT industry in Vietnam, the location should consider too This study was conducted in northern Vietnam including Hanoi capital and the north provinces like Haiphong, Quangninh as well as

be launched through the web and the data will be collected easily Collecting data via the internet can be easier without location barrier Furthermore, the language of the form is written in English together with a Vietnamese translation version attachment As the data gathered in Vietnam, where the mother tongue is Vietnamese, many Vietnamese respondents choose to read questions in Vietnamese for better understanding By that, it can lead to higher accuracy for the result The size

of the population was about 600 that were divided to three parts to send for three different target groups including entrepreneurs-boss; middle managers and employees; the number of questionnaires sent to a company is 12 questionnaires in the total 50 companies from small size to big size

Table 2: Profile of respondents

Frequently (Percentage)

1 Gender

6.Position in company

Entrepreneur or co-founder 38(14.7%)

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Engineering related 74(28.7%)

9.The time to run company(year)

5.Occupation

Programmer /

Software

Software

IT services 102(39.5%)

A total of 258 people (43 percent) completed the questionnaire We excluded all cases missing data and did not consider those people for this analysis, who did not state their field of study Because we applied a control in this analysis regarding the difference of entrepreneurial intention of people who work in companies related to IT and software companies and related to their work position in company like developer, engineer For final analysis, 258 questionnaires were used

Descriptive statistics are utilized to describe the basic features of the data in this study The survey collects 10 basic characteristics of each respondent, including gender, age, education level, major, occupation, position in the company, location, the type of company, the size and the type company and the time to run and business in company Detailed characteristics of respondents are presented in Table 2 above

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Firstly, from the six individual characteristics like gender, age, education level, major before, occupation and position in company we can consider that, in total 258 respondents, around two thirds of them are male Additionally, the age group from 30 to 50 years old spent approximately 50% In this age group, people can have enough time to learn more knowledge as well as real experience to work in the hard environment like ICT environment Together with that age group less than 30 years old explains 37.2 % of responses This is age group most active and enthusiastic, always ready to experience and start up in new ways, new environments Following by groups over 50 years old, there are the people who have enough capabilities to keep important position in organizations (around 14.3%) Additionally, 62% of survey respondents are graduated students in university which is understandable as in fact that the majority of them are working in Vietnam Companies where always require too much certificate for their work, compared with Master and PhD which spent 16.3% and 7.4% respectively In addition, high school level just have small percentage is 14.3% Moreover, the number of respondents in survey who were learned about areas related to computer or software (approximately 50%), engineering (spent 28.7%) and other majors spent a small percent The table also illustrated the occupation of respondents, it is evident that the amounts of people who work in company are programmer/ developer spent more than 50% As for other while, the other four occupation only a small minority were chosen in survey

as software engineer spent 25.6%; consultant spent 15.5% and the last software architect and analytics spent 5% for each This is suitable with the main goal of study Moreover, table also demonstrated the position in company that middle manager and employee showed the highest percentage (61.6%) while director or high-level manager and entrepreneur- co founder spent 23.7% and 14.7% respectively From the discussion about six characteristics above we can explain that almost IT or software companies in survey choice people who have enough IT or computer knowledge, skills as well as experience to work in each reasonable position their company