Nguyen, Cuong
Article
Demographic factors, family background and prior
self-employment on entrepreneurial intention:
Vietnamese business students are different: Why?
Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research
Provided in Cooperation with:
SpringerOpen
Suggested Citation: Nguyen, Cuong (2018) : Demographic factors, family background and
prior self-employment on entrepreneurial intention: Vietnamese business students are different:
Why?, Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research, ISSN 2251-7316, Springer, Heidelberg,
Vol. 8, Iss. 10, pp. 1-17,
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40497-018-0097-3
This Version is available at:
http://hdl.handle.net/10419/196944
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RES E AR C H Open Access
Demographic factors, family background
and prior self-employment on
entrepreneurial intention - Vietnamese
business students are different: why?
Cuong Nguyen
1,2
Correspondence:
nguyenquoccuong@iuh.edu.vn
1
Industrial University of Ho Chi
Minh city, 74 TA19A Street, Thoi An
Ward, District 12, Ho Chi Minh City,
Viet Nam
2
ESCP Europe & Sorbonne Paris 1
Panthéon Doctoral School, Paris,
France
Abstract
This study investigates the impact of demographic factors, prior exposure to self-
employment and family background on entrepreneurial intention of Vietnamese
business students. Three hundred seventy-two undergraduate and post-graduate
business students from three universities in Ho Chi Minh City completed a self-
administered questionnaire which was analyzed through Independent Sample T-test
and One-way ANOVA. Demographic factors include gender, age ranges and education
level, family background include parents’ employment status and parents’ immigrant
status. Results evidence somewhat higher entrepreneurial intention in male students.
Furthermore, students whose parents are self-employed score higher entrepreneurial
intention, but the difference is not statistically significant. The same is evidenced for
students whose parents are immigrants from rural areas to urban cities versus non-
immigrant parents. Prior experience in self-employment also increases entrepreneurial
intention, albeit again insignificantly. Age and education levels show practically no
impact. These results are in clear contradiction to the state with state of-the art
international literature, which evidences significance in all these impact factors.
Keywords: Entrepreneurial intention, Gender, Age, Education level, Prior experience in
self-employment, Parent, Self-employed, Immigrant
Background
Currently, entrepreneurship is a widely discussed topic in Vietnam and the role of
entrepreneurs and private business sectors has been increasingly promoted by the
Vietnamese government.
1
Business start-up programs are not only to inspire the young
people’s entrepreneurial mindset, but more importantly an overall business start-up
support program would be built, including many creative and effective activities. The
Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) (2017), reported that among
the one million Vietnamese unemployed in 2016, the highest unemployment rates
were university graduates or those holding higher degrees. An estimated 190,900 grad-
uates and degree holders (an increase of more than 35,000 people over the same period
last year) could not get jobs. (Vietna m Business Forum - VCCI, 2017).
Journal o
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© The Author(s). 2018 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and
indicate if changes were made.
Nguyen Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research (2018) 8:10
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40497-018-0097-3
Vietnamese graduates struggle to look for jobs and business start-ups and self-
employment are seen as a strategic solution not only to create jobs for young people
but also contribute significantly to the country’s socio-economic development. Many
studies evidence that entrepreneurship is critically important for the economic prosper-
ity of nations (Bowen and Clercq, 2008; Katz, 2007; Kogut et al., 2010). Moreover, self-
employment has significant positive economic imp act not only on wage and salary
scales but also on per capita income growth and poverty reduction (Goetz et al., 2012).
According to Beeka and Rimmington (2011), entrepreneurship is one of the career op-
tions students may consider shortly before or immediately after graduation. For all
these reasons, investigating the motives that drive graduating student s to envisage
entrepreneurship is highly relevant (Zellweger et al. 2011). Namely, it is cru cial to
understand the factors that can impact upon such intentions to start-up a business in
the future. Individual factors that motivate a person’s decision to become an entrepre-
neur are numerous. In general, these factors can be classified as demographic factors
and attitudes, values or psychological factors (Ashley-Cotleur et al., 2009). Two key
demographic variables that influence entrepreneurship activities are gender and family/
parental background. To study antecedents of entrepreneurial intention can help
teachers, consultants, advisors and policy makers to know mor e how these are formed
and how new venture founders’ beliefs, perceptions, experiences, and motives impact
the intent to start a business (Wang et al. 2011; Zellweger et al. 2011). In addition to
personality traits, individual difference variables have been found to predi ct entrepre-
neurship (Ismail et al., 2009). They include age, gender, education, work experience and
role models, family background and education (Hatak et al., 2015; Fatoki, 2014; Quan,
2012; Pablo-Lerchundi et al., 2015; Smith et al., 2016a, b; Yukongdi et al.,2017).
The objective of this study is to further investigate, with a focus on Vietnam, such as
demographic factors, family backgrounds and prior exposure to self-employment on entre-
preneurial intention of business students. Demographic factors include age, gender and
education level; family backgrounds include their parents’ job status and parents’ immi-
grant background. We also strive to assess whether prior experience in self-employment
has any impact on entrepreneurial intention of young business graduates or not. Investi-
gating the motives that drive graduate students for entrepreneurship is highly significant
given the importance of entrepreneurship for job creation and economic growth.
Research framework
Entrepreneurial intention
Entrepreneurial intent ion has been defined by many different scholars worldwide.
Tkachev and Kolvereid (1999) defines entrepreneurial intention as one’s willingness in
undertaking entrepreneurial activity, or in other words becoming self-employed. Entre-
preneurial behavior is a process that unfo lds over time for the individual (Shane, 2000).
Choo and Wong (2006) define entrepreneurial intention as the search for information
that can be used to help fulfill the goal of venture creation. Entrepreneurial intentions
can generally be defined as a conscious awareness and conviction by an individual that
set up a new business venture and plans to do so in the future (Bird, 1988 ; Thompson,
2009). Pihie et al. (2009) states intention as a state of mind or attitude which influences
entrepreneurial behavior. Van Gelderen (2008) states that entrepreneurial intentions
Nguyen Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research (2018) 8:10 Page 2 of 17
are central to understanding the entrepreneurship process because they form the un-
derpinnings of new organizations. The opposite status of being self-employed is becom-
ing a waged or salaried individual. There are many approaches to studying
entrepreneurial intention but there are two most popular models which are Shapero’s
Entrepreneurial Event Model (Shapero, 1975) and the Theory of Planned Behavior
Model (Ajzen, 1991).
Shapero’s Entrepreneurial Event Model views firm creation resulting from interactions
between contextual factors, which would act through their influence an individual’sper-
ceptions. Shapero (1975) lists three dimensions that determine entrepreneurial intention,
namely “Perceived desirability”, “Perceived feasibility” and “Propensity to act”.Shapero
emphasizes the importance of perception in predicting the intention to act in some spe-
cific ways. The perception requires that the behavior must be desirable and feasible and a
clear propensity to act the behavior. Perceived desirability refers to the degree to which
he/she feels attraction for a given behavior (to become an entrepreneur). Perceived feasi-
bility is defined as the degree to which people consider themselves personally able to carry
out certain behavior. The presence of role models, mentors or partners would be a de-
cisive element in establishing the individual’s entrepreneurial feasibility level. Propensity
to act refers to an individual’s willingness to act on decision. The three perceptions are de-
termined by cultural and social factors, through their influence on the individual’s values
system (Shapero, 1975). In a later study, Krueger et al. (2000) modifies the model with
two more components which are specific desirability and perceived self-efficacy. Krueger
studies the significance to understand the self-efficacy in relation to entrepreneurial
intention and he also concluded that entrepreneurial usually ignore the concept of Self-
efficacy in entrepreneurial researches. Self-efficacy theory explains what peoples’ beliefs
about their capabilities to produce effects are.
The Theory of Planned Behavior model is the most widely used model to research on
entrepreneurial intention (Liñán and Chen, 2009). There are three conceptually inde-
pendent determinants of intention towards entrepreneurship, namely attitudes towards
entrepreneurship, subjective norms, and perceived behavior control (Ajzen, 1991). Atti-
tude towards performing behavior refers to perceptions of personal desirability to per-
form the behavior (Ajzen, 1991). It depends on the expectations and beliefs about
personal impacts of outcomes resulting from the behavior. A person’s attitude towards
behavior represents evaluation of the behavior and its outcome. Attitude towards
entrepreneurship refers to the personal desirability in becoming an entrepreneur
(Kolvereid, 1996). As a result, the more expectations and beliefs towards self-
employment refle ct a favorable attitude towards entrepreneurship. Financial security
was the most outstanding variable that made up for the attitude towards en trepreneur-
ial intention (Van Gelderen et al., 2008). Many studies confirm a positive relationship
between attitude and behavioral intention (Kolve reid, 1996; Krueger et al., 2000; Autio
et al., 2001; Van Gelderen et al., 2008; Bodewes, 2010; Tegtmeier, 2012; Yang, 2013;
Nguyen, 2015). Yang (2013
) confirms that attitude represented the most effective pre-
dictor
of entrepreneurial intention. In contrast, Zhang et al. (2015) confirms a surprise
result from a study conducted in United States that attitude fails to generate a signifi-
cant impact on entrepreneurial intention. In addition, Nguyen (2017) confirms that
subjective norms fails to generate significant impact on entrepreneuria l intention in a
research conducted in Viet Nam.
Nguyen Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research (2018) 8:10 Page 3 of 17
Gender
Entrepreneurial intention are associated with socio-demographic variables such as age,
gender, education background, prior employment experience, level of education and the
role models. Demographic factors such as age and gender have been proposed to have an
impact on entrepreneurial intention (Kristiansen and Indarti, 2004). In general, women
have been reported as having lower entrepreneurial intentions. Crant (1996) confirms that
men are more likely than women to express an intention or preference for starting their
own businesses. Zhao et al. (2005) concludes that women are less likely than men to de-
sire becoming an entrepreneur Other studies also argued that females are less likely to es-
tablish their own business than men (Phan et al., 2002a, b). In contrast, some studies
showed no meaningful difference between men and women in terms of intentions to start
businesses (Kourilsky and Walstad, 1998; Shay and Terjensen, 2005;Wilsonetal.,2007;
Smith et al., 2016a, b;Chaudhary,2017). These results challenge past research findings
which ranked female students lower on entrepreneurial dimensions compared to male
students. Furthermore, Daim et al. (2016) provides insight into the entrepreneurial inten-
sion of students in terms of genders and country of residence differences. The paper ex-
plores perceived feasibility and desirability for students in 10 countries. The
entrepreneurship role is gender tested against desirability and feasibility. The results indi-
cate that gender impacts entrepreneurship intention and the way it impacts is influenced
by which country the students are from (Daim et al., 2016). Since the impact of gender on
entrepreneurship remains largely inconclusive, it proposes further research in the area.
Therefore, the first hypothesis of this study are proposed as:
H1. Men will display higher entrepreneurial intention than women.
Age
Some researchers believe that people mostly decide to establish their own firms be-
tween the ages of 25 to 34 (Choo and Wong, 2006; Delmar and Davidsson, 2000). Al-
though older people are more capable of exhibiting behaviors that deviate from the
customary way of doing business as they have greater means and opportunity for doing
so (Curran and Black burn, 2001; Weber and Schaper, 2004) but they are much less
likely as younger people to take steps toward acting entrepreneuria lly (Hart et al., 2004)
or to actually establish a company (Kautonen, 2008). Levesque and Minniti (2006) ex-
plain the age-related effect on entrepreneurial intention as a result of the opportunity
costs of time. It ca n thus be assumed that age has a negative relation with entrepre-
neurial intention. In addition, Hatak et al. (2015) confirms that age is associated with a
lower likelihood of having an entrepreneurial intention. In contrast, Chaudhary (2017)
does not support age is inversely related to entrepreneurial inclination. Thus, the sec-
ond hypothesis of this study is proposed as:
H2. There is a significant difference between age ranges on entrepreneurial intention
of business students.
Education level
Van der Sluis et al. (2004) shows that the effect of general education, measured in years
of schooling, on entrepreneur performance is positive (Van der Sluis et al., 2004). Some
other studies show that the educational background plays a vital role on creating
Nguyen Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research (2018) 8:10 Page 4 of 17
