Entrepreneurial enablers, risk perception and behavioral intention: the mediating roles of motivational factors

Key words Perceived desirability, perceived feasibility, Entrepreneurial intention, Subjective norms, social support, risk perception... 36 4.4.1 Multiple regression analysis to define

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

-

Nguyen Thi Duy Quyen

ENTREPRENEURIAL ENABLERS, RISK PERCEPTION

AND BEHAVIORAL INTENTION:

THE MEDIATING ROLES OF MOTIVATIONAL FACTORS

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

-

Nguyen Thi Duy Quyen

ENTREPRENEURIAL ENABLERS, RISK PERCEPTION

AND BEHAVIORAL INTENTION:

THE MEDIATING ROLES OF MOTIVATIONAL FACTORS

ID:22120106

SUPERVISOR: Dr.Le Nhat Hanh

Entrepreneurial enablers, risk perception, and behavioral intention:

The mediating roles of motivational factors

Nguyen Thi Duy Quyen

duyquyen.nguyen90@gmail.com, Mbus 3.3 International School of Business

Master Thesis Supervisor: Dr Le Nhat Hanh

lenhathanh@yahoo.com, Vietnam Germany University

December 7nd, 2014

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

At the first, I would like to thank all those people who made this thesis possible and valuable experience for my research Especially, I would like express my grateful sincere to my supervisor, Dr Le Nhat Hanh, for her intensive support, worthy suggestions, instructions and encouragement All of them play an important role for my research orientation

Besides, I would like to thank the rest of my thesis committee: Prof Nguyen Dinh Tho,

Dr Nguyen Thi Mai Trang, Dr Pham Ngoc Thuy, Dr Tran Ha Minh Quan as well as other teachers in International School of Business for the insightful comments and useful instruction during MBUS course

In addition, I thank all my classmates in MBUS 3, master students who attended my survey and my colleagues at Blood TransfusionHematology Hospital for their encouragement and supporting to me complete this thesis

Last but not least, my sincere thanks owe to my family who gave me good conditions to finish this work I also wish thank all people who spent through their time and generous support made this thesis project

Abstract

This research empirically investigates the impact of motivational factors including perceived desirability and perceived feasibility on entrepreneurial intention in the context of developing country – Vietnam It also explores the role of subjective norms, risk perception as threat and social support on these motivational factors A sample of 201 master students in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam was surveyed to test the model Multiple regressionswere used to analyze the data The result shows that entrepreneurial intention is positively related to perceive desirability and perceived feasibility In addition, risk perception as threat has negative relationship with perceived feasibility, but in contrast relationship with perceived desirability The result also reveals the positive role of social support on perceived feasibility as well as subjective norms on perceived desirability

The primary contribution of this study is empirically examine the role of motivational factors in entrepreneurial intention in Vietnam as well as providing a combination between different antecedences in one model that was never done before in Vietnam and in the world research about this field However limitation of this study is convenience sample of Ho Chi Minh City„s master students Cross – region sample and undergraduate will be a direction for further research

Key words

Perceived desirability, perceived feasibility, Entrepreneurial intention, Subjective norms, social

support, risk perception

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

ABSTRACT

CHAPTER 1:INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Research background 1

1.2 Research problem 3

1.3 Research objectives 4

1.4 Research methodology and scope 5

1.5 Significance of the study 6

1.6 The structure of the study 6

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES 8

2.2 Hypotheses development 11

2.2.1 Motivational factors and entrepreneurial intentions 11

2.2.2 Subjective norms and perceived desirability 13

2.2.3 Social support and perceived feasibility 14

2.2.4 Risk perception as threat in relation of perceived desirability and feasibility 15

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 17

3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN 17

3.2 RESEARCH PROCESS 17

3.3 MEASURES OF THE CONSTRUCTS 19

3.4 DATA ANALYSIS METHOD 21

3.4.1 Cronbach’s alpha 22

3.4.2 Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) 22

3.4.3 Multiple regression analysis 23

CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS 25

4.1 SAMPLE CHARACTERISTICS 25

4.2 THE RELIABILITY TEST 26

4.3 EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS (EFA) 28

4.3.1 The result of EFA with factors involved the first regression in this study was detailed in following table: 29

4.3.2 The result of second EFA with factors that related to next regression time of the model

was detailed in the following table:\ 31

4.3.3 The result of last EFA with factors that belong to main regression of the model was detailed in the following table: 33

4.3.4 Correlations between all factors: 35

4.4 MULTIPLE REGRESSION ANALYSIS 36

4.4.1 Multiple regression analysis to define the impact of subjective norms and risk perception as threat on the perceived desirability of entrepreneurship 37

4.4.2 Multiple regression analysis to evaluate the influence of family support, friend support, perceived risk as threat and the perceived feasibility of entrepreneurship 39

4.4.3 Multiple regression analysis to measure the relationship between entrepreneur intention and the perceived desirability of entrepreneurship as well as perceived feasibility of entrepreneurship 41

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS AND LIMITATIONS 46

5.1 CONCLUSION 46

5.2 IMPLICATION 47

5.3 LIMITATION 48

Reference 50

APPENDENDICES 55

Appendix A: Guideline for qualitative in-depth interview 55

Appendix B: Questionnaire in English 58

Appendice C: Questionnaire in Vietnamese 61

Appendix D: Histogram, Normal Regression & Scatter plot of Dependent Variable: Perceive desirability of entrepreneurship 64

Appendix E: Histogram, Normal Regression & Scatter plot of Dependent Variable: Perceive feasibility of entrepreneurship 65

Appendix F: Histogram, Normal Regression & Scatter plot of Dependent Variable: Entrepreneur intention 67

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 0.1: Theory of planned behavior„s model 9

Figure 0.2 Krueger & Bazeal‟s entrepreneurial model 9

Figure 0.3: Conceptual model of this research 10

LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Sample Characteristics 26

Table 2: The results of Cronbach’ alpha 27

Table 3: KMO and Barllett’s test Result of perceive desirability, risk perception and subjective norms 29

Table 4: Total Variance Explained perceive desirability, risk perception and subjective norms 29

Table 5: Rotated Component Matrix a of perceive desirability, risk perception and subjective norms 30

Table 6: KMO and Barllett’s test Result of social support, risk perception and perceived feasibility 31

Table 7: Total Variance Explained social support, risk perception and perceived feasibility 31

Table 8: Rotated Component Matrix a of social support, risk perception and perceived feasibility 32

Table 9: KMO and Barllett’s test Result perceived feasibility, perceived desirability and entrepreneurial intention 33

Table 10: Total Variance Explained perceived feasibility, perceived desirability and entrepreneurial intention 33

Table 11: Rotated Component Matrix a of perceived feasibility, perceived desirability and entrepreneurial intention 34

Table 12: Correlation between all factors 35

Table 13: Model Summary of perceived desirability, risk as threat, subjective norms 37

Table 14:Anova of perceived desirability, risk as threat, subjective norms 38

Table 15: Coefficient matrix of perceived desirability, risk as threat, subjective norms 38

Table 16:Model Summary b of risk as threat, perceived feasibility, friend support and family support 40

Table 17: Anovaof risk as threat, perceived feasibility, friend support and family support 40

Table 18:Coefficient matrix of friend support, family support and risk as threat 40

Table 19: Model summary of perceive feasibility, perceived desirability and entrepreneurial intention 42

Table 20:Anova of perceive feasibility, perceived desirability and entrepreneurial intention 42

Table 21:Coefficient matrix of perceive feasibility, perceived desirability 42

Table 22:Summary of hypotheses testing result 43

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

In this chapter, the important entrepreneurial activities in economics growth are demonstrated Briefly tell about the small and medium sized enterprisessituation of Vietnam in recent year Furthermore, providing what is factor influencing individual to intentstart-up in

previous research Theaim, scope and significance of the study are also introduced

1.1 Research background

In early 1980s, Vesper supposes that previous authoritative definitions of entrepreneur actually include some reference to venture or enterprise creation.After several decades, Mueller and Thomas (2000) also review that there are numerous authors in entrepreneurship field point out the relationship between entrepreneurship and new venture formation.All of them agree with definition of entrepreneurship as “the creation of new independent businesses” (Learned, 1992; Low & MacMillan, 1998; Pillis & Reardon, 2007)

Because of the role of entrepreneurship in economics, more studies about this field are conducted Carree and Thurik (2003) say that on the macro-level, new and small businesses contribute significantly to job creation, innovation and economic growth Besides, Giacomin et

al (2011) link the importance between entrepreneurial activities and economic growth, innovation and employment For instant, Schmiemann (2008) also makes this relationship clearer when determining entrepreneurship linked to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), which are the primary developing force of the developed market economies because percentage of SMEs in total number of enterprises is higher than 95%.Moreover, 95% of the wealth created in the US since 1980 is due to the generation of entrepreneurs who create and recognize opportunities (Timmons,as cited in Alfonso & Cuevas, 2012)

On the other hand, entrepreneurship is not only concerned in developed countries, but also in developing countries such as Philippine, Taiwan, China, India, Mexico, Thailand, Hongkong and Vietnam.For example, in Vietnam, since December 1986, economic reforms -

Doi Moi - have been introduced, the private enterprises is considered as an integral part of a

“multi-sector” economy as well as the state passelaws promoting the development of such enterprises As a result, more formal private enterprises appear as engine of the economy in the medium term (Kauanui, Dang & Cotleur, 2006) Moreover, Baughn et al (2005) states the private sector is themost rapidly growing portion of the Vietnamese economy Between 1996 and 2000, thissector created three times more jobs than the state-owned sector, continued growth in GDP and employmenttwill most likely continue to emanate from this sector (The formal private sector, which consists of 70,000 registered corporations, accounts for 8% of GDP and 2–3% of employment (one million people)

As mention above, there are numerous studies about entrepreneurship In the previous decades, researchers have certain concern about factors involving in intention to become an entrepreneur Many different authors suppose that “entrepreneurial intentions are essential to understand the entrepreneurial process as hey precede any attempt in entrepreneurial behavior and it is affect by different factors” (Bird, Katz & Gartner, Krueger & Carsrud, Alpkan et al., Arendt & Brettel, Ga´mez-Gonza´lez et al., Huang et al., Lin et al., Lindblom & Tikkanen, Zhang & Duan, as cited in Alfonso & Cuevas, 2012, page 722)

Up to now, the intention to start-up is mainly based on the following theories: Ajzen‟s theory of planned behavior(1991), Shapero and Sokol‟s model of the entrepreneurial event(1982) and in which the vital elements are explanation and prediction of personal behavior with respect to entrepreneurship.Both models recognize somehow the relevance of thepersonal attitudes and social pressure of entrepreneurship, as well as the perceivedself-efficacy as determining influence in establishing the level of the individual‟sintention.Many next empirical studies are established to test their conceptual model relate to these elements Some of them enhance extra factors involve in situation such as past entrepreneur experience, personal traits that affect entrepreneur intention Most scientists all over the world carry out much empirical research trying to answer different questions related to intentions to start-up business, for example, Turker and Selcuk (2009) wonder whysome people more than others inclined to become entrepreneurs

1.2 Research problem

Benzing, Chu and Callanan(2005) suppose thatthere are substantial differencesin the rate of new business start-ups across countries despite the acknowledged importance of entrepreneurship Both developed and developingnationsmake effortsto promote entrepreneurial activity, including government-supported programs in Finland, Hungary, China, India,Russia, Slovenia, and Mexico Some have had a positive impact, while others have metwith only limited

success (Reynolds et al., Vodopivecas cited in Benzing et al., 2005) The mixed results

ofsuch efforts may reflect inadequate understandings on the part of policy makers regardingessential drivers of entrepreneurship in different country contexts.Therefore understanding why and how people start their businesses may facilitate the development of appropriate policies andfoster entrepreneurial activities more efficiently.It will also help encouraging more potential entrepreneurs for better performance of nation Alfonso and Cuevas (2012) emphasize that managing those factors in order to affect the entrepreneurial intentions in a positive way will useful for economic growth

Vietnam begin recognizes the importance of SEMs from 1986, government also creates and change Enterprise Law many times to encourage and support entrepreneur.In recent period, the number of small and medium sized enterprises isincreasing significantly from 70,000 registeredcorporations in 2000 to 540,000 ones in 2011 Besides, their contribution to GDP jumps to nearly 40% and provide 60% non – agricultural employment until 2011 (To, 2013).There are some researches about this field in Vietnam such as the studies of Hoang (1993),Mekong ProjectDevelopment Facility (Webster & Taussig, 1999), Han and Baumgarte (2000), and Steerand Taussig (2002) about the entrepreneurial problems and changes in the private sector climate (as cited in Benzing et al., 2005) Besides, some recent studies concentrate on Vietnam entrepreneurial performance as well as entrepreneur‘s interest, motivation such as Kauanui ‘s research in about human

resource and entrepreneur performance in 2006 and Baughn et al (2006) make comparison about entrepreneur ‘s motivation between China, Vietnam and Philiipin

However, while entrepreneur activities have positive effect on Vietnam development as well as there are more and more SMEs take part in current period, the research about entrepreneurship in Vietnam is still limited Most of previous researchers just focus on demographic characteristics and problems, but they did not interview Vietnamese entrepreneurs about their motivation for starting a business or about thefactors necessary for success(Benzing et al., 2005) They could find out adequately which motivations influence someone decides to become an entrepreneur in Vietnam Therefore entrepreneurship in Vietnam context is under-studied area of research

There are huge studies about entrepreneurial field in the worldrelate to entrepreneurialsuccess, performances, motivation to find out main factors that impact entrepreneur whichbase on the foundation theory of planned behavioralto explorethe relationship among entrepreneurship and perceived desirability and perceived feasibility Some

of authorsalso focus on antecedents of these two factors However, literature rarely addresses the relationship among subjective norms, risk perception as threat and perceived desirability of entrepreneurship Moreover, impact of social support as well as risk perception as threat on perceived feasibility of entrepreneurship

1.3 Research objectives

All of above issues makes the study about entrepreneurial intention in Vietnam context

in adequate way necessary to explore primary factors that impact start-up intention This research focus on investigating the impacts of entrepreneurial enablers (i.e., subjective norms and social support) and risk perceptions on perceived desirability and feasibility, which in turn affects entrepreneurial intention Therefore, the specific objectives of the research are listed as follows:

1 What are the effects of subjective norms and risk perceptions as threaton perceiveddesirability?

2 What are the effects of social support and risk perceptions as threaton perceivedfeasibility?

3 What is the relationship between perceived desirability and perceived feasibility of entrepreneurship on entrepreneurial intention?

1.4 Research methodology and scope

The research is conducted on master students in Ho Chi Minh City which is the biggest city in Vietnam It centralizes all master students with different majors in some universities.The reason that the sample of this study is master students can be explained by the results of previous research in that field as well as Vietnam concept

Wu and Wu(2008) stated that entrepreneurship is less attractive to students in China with postgraduate degree than those with diploma and undergraduate degree They assume that diploma and undergraduate students are young and full of enthusiasm to begin their new venture; while, postgraduate students are facing high opportunity cost of time and stable cash flow demand to challenge new opportunities.However, postgraduated students can be easily successful when becoming entrepreneur because they usually have more experience, knowledge than other degrees Supporting evidences come from some previous researchesshow that successfulfirms have more college-educated or formal education owner-managers than do firms that fail(Hoad & Rosko, 1964; Sexton &Auken, 1982 as cited in Ertuna, 2009) Hence, this research focuses on master students to find outfactors of entrepreneurial intention of themin oder to have efficient stratergies for development and success of entrepreneur in Vietnam

This study‟s sample is postgraduate students in HoChiMinh City who are not representative for all people have intention to become entrepreneur in Vietnam as well as in HoChiMinh City.The author applied data analysis tool (SPSS) to handle the collected data and

to perform the research And then, using SPSS to test the scale reliability (Cronbach‟ s Alpha), Factor analysis to determine which of a fairly large set of items were answered most similarly

by the respondents, using Multiple Regression to check the relationship between independent variables and dependent variables

1.5 Significance of the study

After this study, it is hopeful that its founding will affect entrepreneurial enablers, risk perception as threat, and motivational factors to develop the suitable strategies to improve entrepreneurial intention of master students

In detail, the result will present the relationship between perceived desirability, feasibility and entrepreneurial intention Besides, it also show the effect of social support, subjective norms ans risk perception as threat to both motivational factors Base on all result, the implication would be used to motivate more master students to create new venture in the future, support for development of Vietnam economics

1.6 The structure of the study

This thesis is organized into five chapters:

Chapter 1: Introduction

This chapter presents the research background of the study, research statements/ research problems, research objectives, research scopes and methodology, the significance of the study, and the research structure

Chapter 2: Literature review and hypotheses

In this chapter, the author presents the fundamental theories and definition of each mentioned concept and theoretical modeling with the proposed hypotheses In this chapter, the conceptual model of the study is also presented

Chapter 3: Research Methodology

This chapter mentions about the research design, research methodology and illustrate the process of conducting the research

Chapter 4: Data analysis and data results

For this chapter, the author summaries the characteristics of collected samples and presents the result of the research after analyzing collected data From that result, the author draws the conclusions for the research hypotheses proposed in Chapter 2

Chapter 5: Conclusions, implications and limitations

This chapter performs the main results of the research, the contribution of the study in management theory and practice as well as the limitations of the study for future research direction

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES

This section will present some models that involving entrepreneurial intention as well as some concepts related to three important matters as perceived feasibility, perceived desirability and their antecedences From these concepts and model had researched and developed in the world, the hypothesis and model thatshow the impact of among perceived feasibility, perceived desirability andentrepreneurial intention will be proposed This chapter has four parts: 1/ Points ofview for theoricalentrepreneurial intention models 2/ the conceptual model, 3/ theoutlook for motivational factors and their antecedences and 4/ the hypothesis for relationships between

Numerous studies about entrepreneur base on two main entrepreneurial intention models which are the entrepreneurial event theory (Shapero & Sokol, 1982) and the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991) Both of them are widely adopted by entrepreneurial intention research

to analyze new venture creation and have emerged in the literature as the main theory-driver models (Alfonso & Cuevas, 2012) The model of Krueger and Bazeal (1994) is developed fromShapero and Sokol„s model that is also considered as the third primary model in this field

Figure 0.1: Theory of planned behavior„s model

Figure 0.2 Krueger & Bazeal‟s entrepreneurial model

Previous researches show that entrepreneurial intention is impacted directly by numerous factors They are mentioned such as subjective norms, attitude toward behavior, perceived behavioral control in Aizen„s model.Besides, factors affect entrepreneurial intention appear entrepreneurial goal commitment in Drnovsek and Erikson„s research in 2005.From the main theory of planned behavior, many studies achieve new factors that are known as perceived desirability which involves attitude of someone and perceived feasibility that relates

to self efficacy or perceived behavioral control (Krueger& Bazeal, 1994; Guerrero et al., 2006; Devonish et al., 2009; Byabashaija, Katono& Isabalija, 2010).Furthermore, previous researchers concern about antecedents of two primary factors (perceived feasibility and perceived desirability) These antecedents are considered as subjective norm, empathy, moral, social support as well as environment factors (Krueger & Carsrud, 1993; Kennedy, 2003; Mair

& Noboa, 2003) As a result, this study is established on Krueger & Bazeal„s model in 1994 However, it also focuses on antecedents of primary factors The conceptual model represents an alternative explanation of entrepreneurial intentions using similar variables of previous models (Krueger, 1993; Shapero and Sokol, 1982) The model is based on a social-cognitive approach

to the study of entrepreneurial intentions

Figure 0.3: Conceptual model of this research

This model presents the relationship between perceived feasibility and perceived desirability and entrepreneurial intention Furthermore, it also predicts the impact of Subjective norms on perceived desirability and social support on perceived feasibility Finally, this model explores the role of risk perception as threat on two motivational factors of entrepreneurial intention

Perceived Desirability

of entrepreneurship

Subjective norms

Entrepreneurial Intention

Risk perception

as threat

Perceived Feasibility

of entrepreneurship Social support

Perceived desirability

Perceived desirability can be interpreted into how attractive the idea of starting up a business is In past studies, perceived desirability has been defined as a personal attitude (Devonish et al., 2009) In this research, the perceived desirability is also considered as attitude toward entrepreneurship It means that personal attitude to have own business

The relationship between entrepreneurial intention and perceived desirability

Davidson (1991) and Katz (1992) state that starting a business reflects a process in which attitudes and intentions are involved and are based on the development of individual competence, experience and relations to the business context as cited in Schwarz et al., 2009 Kolvereid (1996), Robinson et al.(1991) also recognize the importance of domain-specific attitudes in explaining entrepreneurial intention and behavior has been in entrepreneurship research (as cited in Schwarz et al., 2009) In that research, attitude toward entrepreneurship also acts as a primary determinant of students‟ willingness to be self-employed that refers to the individual‟s perception of the personal desirability of performing the behavior, i.e creation of a new venture, and corresponds to the attitude toward the act in the Aizen‟s theory of planned behaviour Obviously, the stronger person interest to start a business, more possibly they intent

to chose the entrepreneurial career path

Furthermore, the previous literature argues that people will form an intention to become entrepreneur base on their entrepreneurial attitudes‟ these being the attitudes held towards the greater decision-making autonomy, firm ownership, risk, hard work, and perquisites that tend

to be associated with entrepreneurship According to Douglas & Shepherd, 2000(as cited in

Fitzsimmons & Douglas, 2005) individuals desiring more income, more independence, and more net perquisites are more likely to want to engage in entrepreneurial behavior Likewise,

an individual with a higher tolerance for risk and less aversion to work effort should be expected to be more likely to want to engage in entrepreneurial behavior Fitzsimmons and Douglas (2005) find that attitude to ownership is a better predictor of entrepreneurial intentions than is independence They also find out when individual have stronger desire about establish their own business, the more intention to become entrepreneur they have

Perceived feasibility

The perceived feasibility meansthe individual‟s assessment of the chances that entrepreneurial activity will succeed given the balance of supporting and constraining contextual influences (Byabashaija et al., 2010) Besides, Devonish et al (2009) stated that perceived feasibility has been defined as perceived self-efficacy

However, there are many arguments about relation between perceived self-efficacy and perceived feasibility Some authors say that perceived self-efficacy is not the same as perceived feasibility but others claim that perceived feasibility is conceptually associated with self-efficacy.For example, Krueger (2000) discusses the notion of perceived self-efficacy as a proxy for feasibility perceptions This approach is adopted in the current study where perceived self-efficacy is treated as a proxy for feasibility perceptions, as both constructs deal with perceptions of personal capability

The relationship between entrepreneurial intention and perceived feasibility

Entrepreneurial intentions have been shown to depend on perceived feasibility (Boyd & Vozikis, 1994; Crick, Greene & Chen, 1998; de Noble, Jung & Erlich, 1999; Markman, Balkin

& Baron, 2002 as cited in Fitzsimmons & Douglas, 2005a) It is measured by the strength of an individual‟s belief that they can accomplish a specific task or series of related tasks It is related

to self confidence and individual capabilities, and these are dependent on prior experience, vicarious learning, social encouragement, and physiological issues (Bandura, 1982; Bandura & Wood,1989 as cited in Boyd & Vozikis, 1994 ) It is found that the stronger a person‟s self-

confidence in relation to a specific task that involved in starting a new venture, the greater the probability that the individual will subsequently engage in that specified intention (Crick, Greene & Chen, 1998 as cited in Fitzsimmons & Douglas , 2005b)

Besides the metioned studies about relationshipof entrepreneur intention and motivation factors, there are a lot of researchers conducted their studies with the concept of perceived desirability and perceived feasibility of entrepreneurship For instance, Shapero and Sokol (as cited in Gelderen et al., 2008), Krueger (1993) explains entrepreneurial intention on the basis of perceived desirability, perceived feasibility and the propensity to act that explaining over half

of the variance in self-employment intentions.Moreover, several researchers also test the impact of perceived feasibility and desirability on self-employment intentions For instant, Fitzsimmons and Douglas(2011); Segal et al (2002) find that entrepreneurial intentions to be positively related to both perceived feasibility and perceived desirability Consequently, Shapero‟s model and the above-mentioned studies agree that new ventures emerge as a result

of choices made by individuals who decide whether the future outcomes are the most desirable and whether it is feasible to pursue these outcomes To sum up, base on the aforementioned arguments, the following two hypotheses are formulated

Hypothesis 1: Perceived feasibility of entrepreneurship is positively associated with

entrepreneurial intentions

Hypothesis 2: Perceived desirability of entrepreneurship is positively associated with

entrepreneurial intentions

2.2.2 Subjective norms and perceived desirability

Subjective norms in previous studies are mentioned as impact of social, important people to thinking and behavior of someone (Aizen, 1991; Kennedy, 2003) Previous entrepreneurial intention research has proven subjective norms to be important (Krueger, 1993;Kolvereid, 1996b) One reason for this might be that generally students are still in thestage of finding out their career choice preferences The opinions of parents, partners,friends and important others might be influential in this process

However, subjective norms in this research are considered as degree to which the individual perceive the university environment to encourage entrepreneurship, and the degree

to which entrepreneurship is perceived as an acceptable career alternative after graduation It is argued that, when individual recognizes others success from entrepreneurial activity or university encouragement about start –up, they feel more attractive with entrepreneurship All

of effects from university can influence attitude toward owning their business

Besides, some previous studies state that subjective norms affect of perceived desirability For example, following Shapero-Sokol‟s lead, Davidsson (1995); Byabashaija et

al (2010) assume that subjective norms are embedded in perceived desirability However,some studies concentrate on the influence of perceived desirability and feasibility on entrepreneurial intentions but neglect the role of subjective norms emphasized by Azjen (as cited in Audet, 2002).Besides, from the result of Kennedy et al (2003) empirical study, subjective norms indirectly relates entrepreneurial intention through perceived feasibility and perceived desirability.Furthermore, testing the extension of the theory of planned behavior (TPB), Tarkiainen and Sundqvist(2005) conduct research in an organic food buying context They justify that subjective norms positively influence attitudes towards buying organic food As mentioned above by Devonish et al.(2009) perceived desirability in Shapero„s model is correspondent to attitude toward behavior in Ajzen„s theory

Thus, it is hypothesis that:

Hypothesis 3: Subjective norms are positively associated with Perceived desirability of

entrepreneurship

2.2.3 Social support and perceived feasibility

Social support is conceived as trust and cooperation derived from social network (Backman & Smith, as cited in Mair & Noboa, 2003) Baron (2000) also supposes that social supports are actual and potential resources from knowledge about other as being a part of social network of them

In entrepreneurial field, social support is understood from family, friends that can be financial or spiritual support While perceived feasibility of entrepreneurship is confidence, belief to success when they start new venture It is clear to see that individual„s perceived behavioral control is stronger when they have good social support Reynold (1991) states that important factor affect entrepreneur „s success involved in efficient network that is defined as all kind of relation refer to venture capital, supplier, facilities, etc (as cited in Mair& Noboa, 2003).Some authors research intimate link between social support and entrepreneurship They consider entrepreneurship as rooted in networks of recurrent social relation, which can act as a facilitator but also as a constraint (Aldrich & Zimmer, as cited in Mair & Noboa, 2003).There are few studies find out the relationship between social support and perceived feasibility Therefore, following Mair & Noboa„s conceptual model, the proposition of this study could be:

Hypothesis 4: Social support is positively associated with Perceived feasibility of

entrepreneurship

2.2.4 Risk perception as threat in relation of perceived desirability and feasibility

Risk perception has been conceptualized as a multidimensional psychological construct comprising two elements: risk as opportunity (focusing on the upside of risk) and risk as threat (focusing on the downside of risk); Barbosa et al.; Dickson & Giglierano; Mullins & Forlani, as cited in Nabi & Linan, 2013).Risk perception as threat means that people perceive risk as failure, difficulties as well as challenges that they could face when conducting new venture

When someone intent to establish a new business, they usually consider many different factors, one of them is risk that they can take It means that, risk perception as threat could be affect start – up intention However, it also affectsof the level perceived feasibility and desirability to start new business directly (Macko & Tyszka, 2009) It can be understood that when risk is considered as threat, individual „s confidence to success can reduce Likewise, interest to do something can also lessen

The hypothesis of this research about risk perception as threat and entrepreneurial motivation factors are being:

Hypothesis 5: The greater risk is considered as a threat(i.e fear of failure), the weaker

the perceiveddesirability of entrepreneurship

Hypothesis 6: The greater risk is considered as a threat (i.e fear of failure), the weaker

the perceived feasibility of entrepreneurship

Summary

This chapter mentions about definition and theoretical background of each concept in the model From previous literature, entrepreneur is impacted by two factors: perceived feasibility andperceived desirability toward entrepreneurship These factors also are influenced

by subjective norms, social support and risk perception as threat

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter mentions about the ways to conduct research to find out the answer for research questions, including: research design, research process, research scale, sample size, data

collection procedure and data analysis method

In order to create a design for research, researchers considered the kind of model and measured were suitable to the subject of the research The focus of this research was examining the two factors affecting entrepreneur intention that includes perceived feasibility, perceived desirability Besides, this study also tested subjective norms, risk perception as threat and social support as two factors‟ antecedents An operation model was presented in Figure 2.7 This research used primary data that collected from master students in Ho Chi Minh City Thus, a

questionnaire survey design was used as the data collecting method

After finishing the preliminary questionnaire, the researcher conducted the in-depth interviews with 5 master students have entrepreneurial intention in Ho Chi Minh City to obtain the correct items in the context of Vietnamese entrepreneurs; checked the content and meaning

of words used in the initial measurement scales and modified them to be more suitable and understanding Although most of the measures of the constructs were mentioned in the previous literature, this step was necessary to make them appropriate and easy to understand in

the context of studying During the interview, some significant feedbacks were received and suggestions from the interviewees to make the improvement for the official questionnaire.After finishing depth inteview, I considered and revised the measurement of each contruct to prepare final questionnaire (See Appendix A)

Quantitative research

After the qualitative research, the questionnaire was adjusted again to be more suitable with Vietnam environment and easier to understand Next the main survey was conducted widely by using convenience sample which collected from master students in Ho Chi Minh City The process of the quantitative research was followed these steps:

- Step 1: The questionnaire was composed for the research:

Questionnaire was designed in English, after that it was translated into Vietnamese for delivering to respondents (See Appendix B & C)

- Step 2: Defining the sample size of the research:

According to many researchers, the size of the sample depends on the method of estimate the sample According to Hair et al (2010), a general rule, the sample size should be

100 or greater and the minimum sample is 5 observations for each scale The model in this study consists of 6 factors with 32 scales so that the minimum sample size should be: 32*5 =

160 observations

For standard multiple regression analysis, the required sample is recommended by Tabachnick and Fidell (1991) should be n>50+8m (where m=number of independent variables) There are 5 independent variables in this research Hence, the minimum sample required to run multiple regression in this study is n > 50+ 8*5= 90 observations

Therefore, this study used the sample size at 201 observations This sample size was appropriate for EFA and multiple regression analysis After that, sampling was conducted based on convenience sampling

- Step 3: The questionnaire was issued to the interviewees

Respondents of this research were master students who study in Ho Chi Minh City at the time the research was deployed by broadcasting via the internet by Google docs By this way, the survey link was sent to respondents via Gmail and facebook The respondents could answer the survey by clicking on the link and keying their answers and submitting the link to the researcher Data collection was conducted during 2 weeks There were about 400 questionnaires sent from online channel, respondents returned 209 questionnaires

- Step 4: The author received the questionnaire and checked again for suitable results

The author collected 209 answers After checking and removing the error questions which were missed answering or answered with value number “4” or same answer for more than fifty percent of the number of questions in the questionnaire from the list of response As a result, the usable data or this study was 201 observations It is suitable with the requirement of minimum sample size: 160 observations

The relevant items in this study used seven-point Likert-type scales to measure the key constructsin the model

The measure of entrepreneurial intentionsconsisted of three questions that adopted to Schwarz et al (2009)

Entrepreneurial intention (EI) Content

EI2 I Estimate that I‟ll start my own business in the next 2 years EI3 I Estimate the I „ll start my own business in the next 5 years

Perceived desirability of entrepreneurship was measured by four questions adapted from Krueger (1993) and Krueger et al.(2000)

Perceived feasibility of entrepreneurship was also measured by 5 items from Kennedy et

al (2003)

PF5 I know enough (knowledge, skill, experience) to start my own

business Social support assessment was adapted from 12 items related to support of family and friend (Zimet et al., 1990)

In the case when I start my own business,

SO2 There is a special person with whom I can share my joys and sorrows

SO4 I get the emotional help and support that I need from my family SO5 I have a special person who is a real source of comfort to me

SO8 I can talk about my problems with my family

SO10 There is a special person in my life that cares about my feelings

Subjective norms are defined in this study was measured using four items that are adopted by Autio et al., 2001„s scale

started up their own firm

own ideas SN3 In my university, I get to meet lots of people with good ideas for a

new firm SN4 There is a well functioning support infrastructure in place to

support the the start-up of new firms Risk perception as threat construct was assessed using a scale measuring the evaluation

of risk as threat (Barbosa et al., as cited in Nabi & Linan, 2013)

Risk perception as threat (PF) Content

venture will do

The SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science) software version 22.0 was used in this study for analyzing collected data Moreover, in order to statistic the sample, compare the results For the next steps, the reliability and validity of measurement scales were evaluated by using Cronbach‟s alpha and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) After that, the author used

Multiple Regression to test the relationship between independent variables and dependent variables as proposed hypotheses

3.4.1 Cronbach’s alpha

A Cronbach‟s alpha was used to measure reliability of concepts, the main reason being

to reduce the measurement error while the rule drawn that the higher the value of Cronbach's alpha, the higher the degree of intercorrelation among items in the scale.(Hair, Money, Samouel & Page, 2007; Hair et al., 2006)

Leech et al (2005) stated that the acceptable value of Cronbach‟s alpha for reliability is above 0.7 However, it can reduce to 0.60 – 0.69 range, especially if there is only a handful of items in the scale When the Cronbach‟s alpha is very high (greater than 0.90), it probably means that the items are repetitious or there are more items in the scale than are really necessary for a reliable measure of the concept (Leech et al., 2005)

Beside of evaluating the value of the Cronbach‟s alpha, the Corrected Item – Total Correlation is also important to consider According to Leech et al (2005), if this correlation is quite high or high (equal 0.40 or above), the item is probably correlated with most of the other items and make a good component of this summated rating scale If the item – total correlation

is negative or too low (less than 0.30), it is necessary to consider the item for wording problems and conceptual fit by modifying or deleting such items

3.4.2 Exploratory factor analysis (EFA)

Norris and Lecavalier (2010, p.9) declared that “EFA is based upon a testable model and can be evaluated in terms of its fit to the hypothesized population model; it indices can be generated to help with model interpretation” On other hand, EFA method is used to identify which of a large set of items go together as a group, or are answered most similarly by respondents (Leech et al., 2005)

This study used EFA to test following requirements:

- KMO value should be from 0.5 to 1 to prove that factor analysis was sufficient (Hoang & Chu, 2005)

- Factor loading for rotated factors with loading should be higher 0.5 that are generally considered necessary for practical significance If sample size is about 100, factor loading should be higher 0.55 (Hair et al., 2007)

- Percent of variance was accepted if it was higher than 50% (Nguyen & Nguyen, 2007)

- Eigen value for extracted factors must be higher 1 which is a common criterion for a factor to

be useful (Leech et al., 2005)

3.4.3 Multiple regression analysis

The multiple regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses and predicted one outcome measure from several independent variables (Leech et al., 2005)

Moreover, multiple regressions was a method normally used to address a variety of research questions, it normally told how well a set of variables was able to predict a particular outcome and can be used to statistically control for an additional variable when exploring the predictive ability of the model (Pallant, 2007)

According to Leech et al (2005), the multiple regression analysis requires many assumptions but it is better to focus on the major ones that are tested easily with SPSS The assumptions include:

1 A linear relationship between each of the predictor variables and the dependent variable

2 Residual or the error is normally distributed

3 No multicolliearity It could be checked by VIF or Tollerance value According to Hoang

and Chu(2005), there was no multicolliearity when VIF >10 or Tollerance < 0.1

Summary

This chapter presented the research design, research process, measurement scale of the constructs and research method used to analyze the collected data The research process was described clearly which included two periods: qualitative research and quantitative research

On qualitative research, the author conducted in-depth interview with 5 respondents to check if the meaning and the word using in the scales were possible to understand and suitable with research context After qualitative research, the questionnaire was lightly revised to be more

suitable On quantitative research, the author listed out five steps from composing questionnaire, the way of defining the sample size for this study, the method of delivering questionnaires to respondents, cleaning collected data to be usable for analyzing data The research applied online questionnaire to distribute to respondents After collecting and cleaning the data, the sample size could be used for final analysis included 201 questionnaires Finally, the author introduced the method that the researcher applied to analysis the collected data The next chapter will present data analysis results of main survey

CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS

This chapter reported the result of the research First of all, the descriptive of data was presented Next, reliability and validity of the scale measurement were tested by Cronbach„s alpha and Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) Finally, multiple regression analysis was used tocheck the hypothesis and the concept model

Regarding to income per month, 93 (46 percent) master students had income„s range from 5 -10 million VND The second group of higher income was from 10 to 20 million VND with approximately 27 percent (54 students) of total sample There was just about 12 percent students had under 5 million VND per month With the highest range income of this research, there were 30 master students (about 15 percent) had income over 20 million VND per month

Most of master students were staff (128 respondents, 63.7 percent), over a quarter of sample was manager (52 respondents) There were just 6 percent of master students with supervisor position The rest of sample included full - time master students, freelancers (4.5 percent)

The primary postgraduate major of sample were administration business (96 students, nearly 48 percent), the next attractive major that over a half of the rest sample were finance (about 27 percent, 54 students)

Table 1: Sample Characteristics

It was required to test the Cronbach alpha of scale for each construct in order to ensure that all items in one scale were reliable in measuring the research concept

As mentions above, cronbach alpha should be above 0.7, however if it is lower from 0.6

to 0.69 range could be acceptable (Leech et al., 2005), Moreover, correlation of each specific item with total of the other items in the scale (Corrected Item-Total correlation) is moderately high or higher 0.4 or above (Leech et al., 2005) On the other hand, it is required to check again the words used in questionnaire, take a look on the meaning between each item and modify or delete the item if it is necessary for conceptual fit, if the item of total correlation is negative or too low (less than 0.3)

The result for Cronbach alpha test was summarized in table 2:

Table 2: The results of Cronbach‟ alpha

Scale Mean

if Item Deleted

Scale Variance

if Item Deleted

Corrected Total

Item-Correlation

Squared Multiple Correlation

Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted

scale had Cronbach„s alpha under 0.7 (around 0.698) However, according to Leech et al (2005) it could indicate minimally adequate reliability

The result also showed that the corrected item-total correlation of perceived feasibility item 3 was 0.206 (lower 0.3), so it would be rejected in next analysis step Although, there was some items had the corrected item-total correlation were less than 0.4, as mentioned above in 3.4.1, they could be acceptable items because it was still higher than 0.3 and the crobach alpha just increased a little when deleting them As a result, all items (except perceived feasibility

item 3) were used in establishing the main survey to test the study hypotheses

After checking the Cronbach‟s alpha, evaluating the measurement scales by conducting exploratory factor analysis is necessary The purpose of EFA is to define which set of items go together as a group or are answered similarly by respondents (Leech et al., 2005) In this study, EFA was run through the Principal Component Factoring with Varimax rotation method As the conceptual model that there were six factors: Subjective norms, risk perception as threat, Social support, Perceived feasibility, Perceived desirability, Entrepreneur intention, the study examined if the items belonging to one concept actually are in the same group

EFA was conducted in three times to examine the structure or relationship between variables before run the multiple regressions

4.3.1 The result of EFA with factors involved the first regression in this study was detailed in

following table:

Table 3: KMO and Barllett’s test Result of perceive desirability, risk perception and subjective

norms

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy ,756

Bartlett's Test of Sphericity Approx Chi-Square 822,699

Initial Eigen values

Extraction Sums of Squared

Total

% of Variance

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis

Based on the test of assumption, the KMO was 0.756 presenting sufficient items for each construct KMO test indicates one whether or not enough items are predicted by each construct The Bartlett was significant (0.000 less than 5%) meant that the variable was correlated highly enough to provide a reasonable basis for factor analysis (See Table 4.3)

By doing EFA (Principal Components Factoring with Varimax rotation method), the result showed that three construct were extracted from 12 items measuring: Subjective norms,

Risk perception as threat and perceived desirability Moreover, the cumulative of the first three constructs occupied for 60.8 percent of variance This indicated that over a two over third of variance could be explained by three initial items

The Rotated Factor Matrix showed the items and factor loading for rotated factors with loading higher than 0.5 was significant as requirement The items clustered into three groups that they belonged to

Table 5: Rotated Component Matrix a of perceive desirability, risk perception and subjective norms

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis

Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization

a Rotation converged in 5 iterations