Factors affecting entrepreneurial intention and hypotheses

Studies of factors affecting entrepreneurial intention have many approaches in accordance with several ways of classification. Some studies focus on individual capacity such as technical skills, managerial ability, leadership, family tradition (Ang & Hong, 2000; Drennan et al., 2005; Alsos et al., 2011); characteristics such as desire for achievement, risk taking ability (Begly et al., 1997; Autio, 1997) and other approach is based on the theory of planned behavior (Krueger et al., 2000; Linan & Chen, 2009).

Moreover, various institutes and organizations all over the world have conducted surveys about the desire of the younger generation to engage in entrepreneurial activities. In 2011 a Flash Eurobarometer survey stated that, according to its research, 43% of young people from European countries were willing to open a new business (Flash Eurobarometer 2011). A couple of years later the University of Phoenix in the state of Arizona (USA) held a survey among young people under thirty years of age about their attitude to setting up their own business. It appeared that 63% of the respondents planned to or had already owned a startup company. (Zetlin, 2013.)

Previous researchers agree that entrepreneurship education is an effective method to supply students with necessary knowledge about entrepreneurship and affects their career choice (Mumtaz et al., 2012;

Turker &Selcuk, 2009; Peterman & Kennedy, 2003; Türker và Selçuk, 2009). Phan Anh Tu and Tran Quoc Huy (2017) pointed out that the entrepreneurship program has positive influence on technical students’

entrepreneurial intention in Can Tho.

Moreover, support from relations is considered as the acceptance and support from family, friends and others for the business (Türker và Selçuk, 2009). Family and friends have great impact on youths’ career choice because they may supply fund for startups and play the role of good examples (Nanda và Sorensen, 2009). Similarly, Altinay et al. (2012) in a research on students at the UK universities found that the family background has positive impact on entrepreneurial intention. Zapkau et al. (2015) also found that the model of parents positively influences the entrepreneurial intention.

Another factor that mentioned in previous studies is the perceived behavior control that also has impact on entrepreneurial intention. Perceived behavior control is the ease or difficulty in the individual’s awareness about the entrepreneurship behavior (Maes et al., 2014). As explained by Maes et al. (2014), the internal control behavior is related to the ability of a person, eg, the confidence to do business, while the external control is much related to the situation. Mumtaz et al. (2012) also confirmed that the perceived behavior control (innovation and risk evaluation) has positive impact on entrepreneurial intention.

In this study, we consider the impact of these factors on entrepreneurial intention in accordane with Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) as it is the most common theory about intention and its reliability has been proved through many previous studies in the world (Krueger et al., 2000; Linan & Chen, 2009; Ferreira et al., 2012).

Factors that are assumed to affect students’ entrepreneurial intention including (1) personal expectations; (2) attitude towards entrepreneurship; (3) perceived self-efficacy and (4) perceived behavior control.

Personal expectation

Personal expectation is the individuals’ expectation of their ability to perform a specific action (Krueger et al., 2000). Thus, personal expectation is a psychological variable that shows the ability and desire of a

person of an important task or action. Expection of an individual on entrepreneurship is related to the confidence of the ability to develop a business plan, set up an enterprise or solve problems during startup process. Those persons who are confident about their ability to startup often have more positive attitude towards a task or intention to execute their plan. As a result, this study raises the hypothesis:

H1: Personal expectation positively influences students’ attitude towards entrepreneurship Attitude towards entrepreneurship

Attitude towards entrepreneurship can be considered as the positiveness or motivation to take part in entrerpreneurship whenever an opportunity arises (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975; Krueger et al., 2000). The positive attitude towards entrepreneurship is also the desire to open a business rather than to seek for a job position in an organization (Tella & Issa, 2013). A person that have positive attitude towards entrepreneurship is more excited about doing a business and consider becoming an entrerpreneur an important objective. In other words, positive attitude towards entrepreneurship is regarded as a motivator of entrepreneurship and strengthern the determination of startup decision (Autio et al., 2001; Linan & Chen, 2009). Hence, the following hypothesis is raised.

H2: Attitude towards entrepreneurship positively influences students’ entrepreneurial intention.

Self-efficacy

Self-efficacy is one’s sense of competence: a belief that we can do something specific (Bandura, 1977, 2001). Self-efficacy is a strong driver of goal-oriented behavior (Baum and Locke, 2004; Bandura, 1977, 2001). Desiring to do something, however, is not enough to lead to intentions. A belief that one can actually do it is also required. For instance, gender and ethnic differences in work preferences and performance can often be traced to differences in self-efficacy. Kourilsky and Walstad (1998) compared perceptions of knowledge with actual knowledge of entrepreneurial skills and showed that although the skill levels of boys and girls were comparable, girls were more likely to feel ill prepared.

Entrepreneurial self-efficacy is linked to certain behaviours, for example opportunity recognition and innovation associated with entrepreneurship (Chen et al., 1998). Lucas and Cooper (2005) have argued that self-efficacy, more than any other psychological construct, is linked to commitment to accomplish goals. In other word, self-efficacy can be defined as an invididual’s confidence in successfully performing certain tasks such as identifying new business opportunities, creating new products, thinking creatively, and commercializing an idea or new development. Determination is an essential for would-be entrepreneurs who often take many risks and spend many years in the face of adversity. Thus, an individual that has positive self-efficacy will enventually has good perceived behavior control of entrepreneurship. As a result, this study proposes the hypothesis:

H3: Self-efficacy positively influences students’ perceived behavior control.

Perceived feasibility

Perceived feasibility or perceived behavioural control (PBC) is defined as the individual’s perception of the ease or difficulty of performing an action (Ajzen, 2002). In terms of entrepreneurship, PBC is considered as the perception of the success of becoming an entrepreneur. It is, therefore, a concept quite similar to self-efficacy (SE) (Bandura, 1997), and to perceived feasibility (Shapero & Sokol, 1982). All three concepts refer to the sense of capacity regarding the fulfillment of firm-creation behaviors. PBC would include not only the feeling of being able, but also the perception about controllability of the behavior. High PBC will

58 HỘI THẢO KHOA HỌC QUỐC TẾ KHỞI NGHIỆP ĐỔI MỚI SÁNG TẠO QUỐC GIA have impact on attitude towards startup (Devonish et al., 2010), motivation or intention of entrepreneurship so that it pushes the desire and determination of an individual to start their business (Krueger et al., 2000).

Therefore, this study proposes the hypothesis:

H4: Perceived feasibility positively influences students’ attitude towards entrepreneurship H5: Perceived feasibility positively influences students’ entrepreneurial intention

Subjective norms

Subjective norm (SN) measures the perceived social pressure to carry out—or not to carry out—

entrepreneurial behaviors. In particular, it would refer to the perception that “reference people” would approve of the decision to become an entrepreneur, or not (Ajzen, 2001). Subjective norm is a cognitive variable that reflects the power of influential groups on an individual such as family, friends and colleagues.

Regarding entrepreneurship, influential groups may become either hinders or motivators of an individual determination to startup. As Vietnamese people is heavily influenced by Confucian tradition, with the characteristics of collective culture, individuals often consider the opinions of others before acting (Nguyen et al., 2009). Therefore, the authors speculate that support from related people may foster the entrepreneurial intention. As a result, the following hypothesis is defined.

H6: Subjective norm positively influences students’ entrepreneurial intention

Figure 1: Research model 3. METHODOLOGY

3.1. Research design

This study uses structured questionnaire to survey technical students at Hanoi Universit of Sciences and Technology (HUST). The survey was conducted during April and May, 2017. The questionnaire items are adopted from previous studies such as Krueger et al., 2000; Autio et al., 2001; Linan & Chen, 2009.

The pilot survey was done with 20 students at HUST and HCM University of Sciences and Technology to be checked for validity and adjustment of questionnaire items. After modification, an official questionnaire was designed as shown in Table 1. Liker-5-point scale was used with 1 means “totally disagree” and 5 means “total agree”.

Table 1: Questionnaire Items

Code Item Source

Personal expectation

EXP1 I know how to develop a startup project

Krueger et al.

(2000) EXP2 I have prepared to set up an enterprise

EXP3 If I try to set up an enterprise, it will be successful EXP4 I think I know how to identify opportunities EXP5 I am able to solve arising probems

Attitude towards entrepreneurship

ATT1 I am interested in becoming an entrepreneur

Krueger et al.

(2000), Autio et al. (2001), Linan

& Chen(2009) ATT2 If I have an opportunity and necessary resources, I would startup

ATT3 I want to become an entrepreneur if I have to make a choice of my career

ATT4 Becoming an entrepreneur would bring me great satisfaction ATT5 Becoming an entrepreneur would bring more advantages than

disadvantages Subjective norms

BEL1 My friend would support my startup idea

Krueger et al.

(2000), Linan &

Chen (2009) BEL2 Family members would support my startup idea

BEL3 My classmates would support my startup idea

BEL4 People surrounding me thinks that it is admireable to become an entrepreneur

Self-efficacy

SEF1 Starting a business would be easy for me

Krueger et al.

(2000), Autio et al. (2001), Linan

& Chen (2009) SEF2 Maintaining value of a business is not too difficult

SEF3 I am able to control a startup

SEF4 Startup would bring me more opportunities to develop SEF5 I know necessary aspects to begin a business

SEF6 Only unexpected events would hinder me from starting up SEF7 Developing a business idea would be easy for me

Perceived behaviorial control

60 HỘI THẢO KHOA HỌC QUỐC TẾ KHỞI NGHIỆP ĐỔI MỚI SÁNG TẠO QUỐC GIA

Code Item Source

FEA1 If I startup, my enterprise would sustain and develop

Krueger et al.

(2000) FEA2 I think my startup would be highly successful

FEA3 I think I have sufficient traits to become an entrepreneur

FEA4 Knowledge and experiences motivate me to become an entrepreneur FEA5 I have a network of relationship that support me when I startup FEA6 I can easily access supporting information for entrepreneurship Entrepreneurial intention

INT1 I am ready to do everything to become an entrepreneur

Krueger et al.

(2000), Linan &

Chen (2009) INT2 My objective is becoming an entrepreneur

INT3 I will try my best to start and manage my company

INT4 I will surely start my own business in the near future (ie: right after graduating)

INT5 I have a big will about my startup 3.2 Modeling and data collection

Survey respondents are technical students at HUST except for the first year students. Sample size is 300 following the rule of good sample by Comrey & Lee (1992) for the official survey. Two round of data collection was conducted: (1) pilot test with 156 valid questionnaires and (2) official survey with 302 valid respondents (Table 2). For the official survey, hierarchy sampling method was used with the defined percentage of student groups at HUST including (1) Information technology, Communication, Electricity and Automation; (2) Mechanics, Mechanics Design and Materials Science; (3) Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Environment and (4) Other majors (excluding economics and business administration). A printed questionnaire was delivered to students with support of lecturers at these following faculties: Electricity, Mechanics, Information Technology, Biotechnology and Food

Table 2: Sample Description

Criterion Number of students (%)

Gender Male 246(81.5%)

Female 56(18.5%)

Grade

2^nd year 83(27.5%)

3^rd year 178(58.9%)

4^th year 34(131.3%)

5^th year 7(2.3%)

Parents’ job Farming 150(50%)

Officers 97(32.3%)

Doing business 53(17.7%)

Part-time job Often 35(11.7%)

Occasional 149(49.7%)

None 116(38.7%)

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