Tài liệu Relationship between role models and entrepreneurial intentions

“VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI” “VIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY” ------------------------------- “HOANG DUC TRUNG” RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ROLE MODELS AND ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTIONS “MASTER’S THESIS” “BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION” “Hanoi, 2020” “VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI VIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY” ------------------------------- “HOANG DUC TRUNG” RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN “ROLE MODELS AND” “ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTIONS” “MAJOR: BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION” “CODE: 8340101.1” “RESEARCH SUPERVISORS:” “Assoc. Prof. Dr. VU ANH DUNG” “Assoc. Prof. Dr. KODO YOKOZAWA” “Hanoi, 2020” TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ABSTRACT ABBREVIATION LIST OF TABLES LIST OF FIGURES CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................... 1 1.1 Research background ..................................................................................1 1.1.1 Practical motivation ................................................................................1 1.1.2 Theoretical motivation ............................................................................2 1.2 Subject and scope of research .....................................................................3 1.2.1 Subject of research ..................................................................................3 1.2.2 Scope of research ....................................................................................3 1.3 Research objective ...................................................................................... 3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................ 4 2.1 Theoretical background...............................................................................4 2.1.1 Entrepreneurship ..................................................................................... 4 2.1.2 Entrepreneurial intention ........................................................................5 2.1.3 Entrepreneurial Self-efficacy ..................................................................6 2.1.4 Role model .............................................................................................. 7 2.2 Previous related research ............................................................................8 2.2.1 Mediating role of ESE ............................................................................8 2.2.2 Moderators of role models’ impact on ESE ...........................................9 i 2.3 Research gap ............................................................................................. 11 2.4 Research questions .................................................................................... 12 2.5 Hypotheses ................................................................................................ 12 2.6 Research model ......................................................................................... 14 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .......................................... 16 3.1 Procedure...................................................................................................16 3.2 Data collection .......................................................................................... 17 3.3 Measurements ........................................................................................... 17 CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS ............................................................... 19 4.1 Descriptive statistics .................................................................................19 4.2 Analysis .....................................................................................................19 4.2.1 Reliability test ....................................................................................... 19 4.2.2 Exploratory factor analysis ...................................................................20 4.2.3 Regression ............................................................................................. 23 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION ........................................................................ 28 5.1 Discussion .................................................................................................28 5.2 Theoretical and practical implications ...................................................... 30 5.2.1 Theoretical implications .......................................................................30 5.2.2 Practical implications ............................................................................31 5.3 Limitations and directions for future researches .......................................32 REFERENCES. ............................................................................................... 33 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisors – Associate Prof. Dr. Vu Anh Dung and Associate. Prof. Dr. Kodo Yokozawa for generous and careful guidance. I would also like to thank Mr. Nguyen Anh Hao and Ms. Pham Thi Xuan Thoa for their enthusiastic support during my research. A very special thanks go to MBA program’s teachers and staff, my friends, and my family for great companion and encouragement. iii ABSTRACT A considerable amount of studies on the influence of role models on entrepreneurial intentions have been conducted. However, the specific mechanism by which role models exercise such influence is not yet fully discovered. This paper attempts to explore such mechanism, with the possible mediating effect from entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and expected moderating effect from perceived similarity and previous entrepreneurial experience. The author used quantitative method with a sample of 205 undergraduate business-majored students of Foreign Trade University in Vietnam. The results show that role models positively impact students’ entrepreneurial intentions, both directly and indirectly via the mediator which is entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Contrary to the expectations, perceived similarity and previous entrepreneurial experience appear to have no significant moderating impact on how role models alter respondents’ self-evaluation of their business-related competency. This research contributes to the literatures regarding antecedents of entrepreneurial intentions, backing up the idea that entrepreneurial self-efficacy could be an efficient mediating variable in models related to entrepreneurial intentions. Keywords: entrepreneurial intentions, role models, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, perceived similarity, previous entrepreneurial experience iv ABBREVIATION EI Entrepreneurial Intention ESE Entrepreneurial Self-efficacy PEE Previous Entrepreneurial Experience PS Perceived Similarity RM Role Model v “LIST OF TABLES” Table 2.1: Previous researches related to mediating role of ESE ............................... 9 Table 4.1: Cronbach’s Alpha Test results .................................................................20 Table 4.2: KMO and Barlett’s Test results ............................................................... 20 Table 4.3: Total Variance Explained ........................................................................21 Table 4.4: Rotated Component Matrix .....................................................................21 Table 4.5: Correlations .............................................................................................. 22 Table 4.6: Result of hypothesis testing .....................................................................27 vi “LIST OF FIGURES” Figure 1.1: Entrepreneurial Intention Rates in 2017 ...................................................2 Figure 2.1: Theory of Planned Behavior .....................................................................5 Figure 2.2: Entrepreneurial Intention Model .............................................................. 6 Figure 2.3: Determinants of ESE ................................................................................7 Figure 2.4: Proposed research framework ................................................................ 14 Figure 3.1: Mediation analysis by PROCESS Macro ...............................................16 Figure 4.1: Gender ratio ............................................................................................ 19 Figure 4.2: Model of mediating effect ......................................................................23 Figure 4.3: RM’s impact over ESE ...........................................................................24 Figure 4.4: RM and ESE’s impacts over EI .............................................................. 24 Figure 4.5: RM’s total, direct, and indirect impact over EI ......................................25 Figure 4.6: Result for model of mediating effect ...................................................... 25 Figure 4.7: Moderate effect of PS .............................................................................26 Figure 4.8: Moderating effect of PEE .......................................................................26 Figure 4.9: Result for both mediating and moderating effect ...................................27 Figure 5.1: Role Models’ impact on individual’s ESE in relation with amount of time working together .......................................................................................................30 Figure 5.2: Role Models’ impact on individual’s EDE in relation with Role Models’ successfulness ...........................................................................................................30 vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Research background 1.1.1 Practical motivation Entrepreneurship is important to the growth of society in the sense that it helps to create jobs and promote innovation (Shane & Venkataraman, 2000). Sobel and King (2008) have also shown that entrepreneurship rate is directly proportional to economic growth rate. Since the turning of the century, entrepreneurship has proved to be one of the stabilizer of economies’ financial states (Bohlmann, Rauch, & Zacher, 2017). Not only influential in terms of finance or economics, entrepreneurship in general, and one of its branches called social entrepreneurship in particular, contribute greatly to social wellbeing by mobilizing social resources to resolve social issues (Beckmann, 2012). Acknowledging that entrepreneurship would be a crucial engine driving the country forwards, Vietnam has applied various policies and initiatives to promote entrepreneurial spirit, especially among younger generations (Nguyen & Gillian, 2016). However, despite the efforts, it appears that entrepreneurship movement in Vietnam is not yet as strong as it is expected to be. As can be observed from the above Figure 1.1 below, Vietnam’s Entrepreneurial Intention Rate is lower than the average rate of Asia Pacific Region and rates of several neighbor countries. Considering that entrepreneurship is one of the top development priorities of Vietnam, as reflected in the Government’s Initiative for Startup Ecosystem called National Program 844, the current rate of Entrepreneurial Intention is not up to the ambition of a so-called startup nation. To be specific, in 2017, Global Entrepreneurship Monitor evaluated Entrepreneurial Intention Rates, calculated as “percentage of population aged 18-64 who intend to 1 start a business within 3 years from the time of survey”. According to the findings Vietnam’s rate (25%) was lower than the average rate of Asia Pacific Region (26.2%), and also lower and those rates of neighbor countries such as Indonesia (28.1%) and Thailand (37.4%) (GEM Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, 2017). % 40 37.4 35 28.1 30 26.2 25 25 20 17.6 15 10 5 0 Vietnam Indonesia Thailand Malaysia Asia Pacific Region Figure 1.1: Entrepreneurial Intention Rates in 2017 Source: GEM Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (2017) Therefore, there should be more measures to boost Vietnamese people’s eagerness to open new businesses, especially among younger generations. Regarding this matter, one potential source of entrepreneurial motivation may come from role models. Van Trang, Do, and Luong (2019) shows that those who have entrepreneurial role models would be significantly more confident in their start-up ability. That is to say, further exploration of such correlation could be beneficial for stronger promotion of entrepreneurship in Vietnam. 1.1.2 Theoretical motivation Entrepreneurial intention has been vastly researched over the last few decades (Bandura, 1986; BarNir, Watson, & Hutchins, 2011; Bohlmann, Rauch, & Zacher, 2 2017; Bosma, Hessels, Schutjens, Praag, & Verheul, 2012; Brunel, Laviolette, & Radu-Lefebvre, 2017; Farrukh, Alzubi, Shahzad, Waheed, & Kanwal, 2018; Krueger, Reilly, & Carsrud, 2000; etc.) Trying to explore what is the origin of entrepreneurial intention, or what factors are able to ignite the desire of becoming business owners within individuals, many researches have identified role model as a notable determinants (Shapero, 1982; Bosma et al., 2012). Even though widely recognized as having influence over entrepreneurial intention, the mechanism by which role model exercises such influence is not yet fully understood, for example, whether the impact can be delivered directly, or must be channelled through a mediating factor (Krueger, Reilly, & Carsrud, 2000), or what kind of forces would moderate the impact process (Bosma et al., 2012). As such, this study aims to provide an answers, among many others, to the aforementioned questions. 1.2 Subject and scope of research 1.2.1 Subject of research The research subject is entrepreneurial intention of undergraduate business-majored students in Hanoi. 1.2.2 Scope of research The data is collected from Foreign Trade University between 6/4/200 and 10/4/2020. 1.3 Research objective The study aims to explore by what mechanism role models could exert their influence on Vietnamese business-majored undergraduate students’ entrepreneurial intentions. 3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Theoretical background 2.1.1 Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship could be defined as the process by which individuals or groups utilizing resources such as finance, labor, and even risk, to create new goods or services (Kearney, Hisrich, & Roche, 2010). According to Shane and Venkataraman (2000), entrepreneurship involves three main contents: the origin of entrepreneurial opportunities; the processes by which the aforementioned opportunities are discovered, evaluated, and exploited; and the people who carry out all the said actions. Also taking opportunities as the focal point of entrepreneurship, Venkataraman (2019) points out that the differences among individual, especially differences in ‘possession of useful knowledge’, make each person to have unique pespective of what can be considered as enterprising opportunities and what are not, thus their subsequent methods of exploiting such opportunities would also vary. Even though still recognizing the role of opportunities when it comes to studying about entrepreneurship, Friedman and Aziz (2012) incline towards defining entrepreneurship as the action of initiating new corporates or renew existing ones. Those who conduct the aforementioned entrepreneurship activities are entrepreneurs. There are also a wide range of perspectives regarding what constitute an entrepreneur. Cunningham and Lischeron (1991) present six approaches for describing entrepreneurship, one of which is that “entrepreneurs are those who organize, own, manage, and assume the risk, and their core behavior is innovation”. Partly sharing the sentiment regarding the innovation aspect, Schumpeter (1965) defines entrepreneurs as those who, with the tools of technical and/or organizational innovation, capitalize opportunities available in the market. 4 However, despite numerous conducted studies on entrepreneurship, people’s understanding on how entrepreneurship is originated, or what factors contribute to individuals’ decision to start business, or to become entrepreneur, remains relatively underdeveloped (Markman, Balkin, & Baron, 2002). 2.1.2 Entrepreneurial intention From a certain perspective, entrepreneurship is considered a planned behavior (Katz & Gartner, 1988). Krueger et al., (2000) states that “entrepreneurial intention is the subjective thinking and mental state of entrepreneurs before they implement entrepreneurial behavior”. Understanding such preceding thoughts and notions would give a clearer view over the intended behavior called as entrepreneurship. There are various factors affecting entrepreneurial intention, which may come from external environment like opinions of surrounding society regarding entrepreneurship (Meek, Pacheco, & York, 2010), or elements existing within individuals such as talents, habits, desires, or perception of values (Lee & Wong, 2004). Similarly, perception of social support, structural support, family support, or other related perceptions, can be considered as internal and cognitive antecedents (Ajzen ,1991). There have been several intention models put forward by researchers, of which the most widely used is Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) by Ajzen (1991). Figure 2.1: Theory of Planned Behavior Source: Ajzen (1991) 5 TPB suggests three antecedents for intention. The first one – “attitude towards the behavior” - is built upon the expectations about how the outcome of the behavior would effect individual who carries out the behavior. Next, “subjective norms” refer to how related people think about that individual’s conducting a certain actions. Lastly, “perceived behavioral control” reflects how that individual think about the feasibility of performing the behavior (Krueger, Reilly, & Carsrud, 2000). Based on TPB model, several intention models specifically applied for the field of entrepreneurship have been developed. Below is one example among those. Figure 2.2: Entrepreneurial Intention Model Source: Liñán (2004) Adapting from TPB model’s “perceived behavioral control” variable, Liñán’s model’s “perceived feasibility” variable incorporates the element of perceived selfefficacy together with perceived feasibility. Ajzen (2002) also updates TPB model to include this perceived self-efficacy component. 2.1.3 Entrepreneurial Self-efficacy According to Chen, Greene, and Crick (1998), ESE is a mental state in which a person feel that certain entrepreneurial tasks, often involving in establishing and managing one own’s business, are attainable with self-ability. 6 ESE can predict entrepreneurial intention (Franke & Lüthje, 2004). It is also among most inportant deciding factors of entrepreneurial intention’s magnitude, as well as a reliable indicator of how likely such intention will be materialized (Boyd & Vozikis, 1994). Researching the determinants of ESE, as part of an entrepreneurial intention model, Zhao, Hills, and Seibert (2005) point out several determinants as below. Figure 2.3: Determinants of ESE Source: Zhao, Hills, and Seibert (2005) Meanwhile, Bandura (1986) claims that there are four processes effecting individual ESE, namely “enactive mastery, role modeling, social persuasion, and judgement of one’s own physiological states”. Krueger, Reilly, and Carsrud (2000) also confirm that ESE is partly determined by role models. 2.1.4 Role model Role model could be understood as someone whose values and actions could be set as an example based on which other people make their own specific decisions in life (Basow & Howe, 1980). Bell (1970) indicates that there are both physical and cognitive sides of role modelship. The physical side is called “interaction”, by which individuals could either directly or indirectly approach to role models in different domains such as professional or academic ones. Meanwhile, the cognitive side, 7 named as “identification”, means individuals can identify similarities between themselves and their role models regarding attitudes and characteristics. Limiting the concept of role model to the domain of entrepreneurship, Shapero (1982) states that children are likely to take their parents as entrepreneurial role models. Scherer et al., (1989) also find out that parental role model would exert significant influence on their children’s ESE. Meanwhile, Van Auken et al., (2006) predicate that business-owners, rather than non-business-owners, would be a bigger source of influence over people aiming to become entrepreneurs. In terms of function, role models could carry out the following tasks: inspire and motivate, increase self-efficacy, provide guidelines for action, provide direct support or advice (Bosma et al., 2012). The impact of role model has long been utilized by Entrepreneurship Education Programs (EEP). By telling stories of role models to learners, EEP ignite the entrepreneurial spirit and give guidance for subsequent entrepreneurial behaviors for the potential business owners (Gibson, 2004). Success role model stories also helps to foster positivity within listeners, thus stimulating their entrepreneurial intention (Gnyawali & Fogel, 1994). 2.2 Previous related research 2.2.1 Mediating role of ESE Based on models explaining EI, many researchers have moved ESE’s original position as a direct determinant of entrepreneurial intention, to another position as the mediator, which mediates the impact of other factors on EI. Notable findings include those of Zhao, Hills, and Seibert (2005), in which ESE “mediates the effectss of perceptions of formal learning, previous entrepreneurial experience, and risk propensity” on EI. Entrepreneurial Education (EE) is also observed to have its impact mediated by ESE (Oyugi, 2015; Malebana & Swanepoel, 2014; Shinnar, Hsu, & Powell, 2014). 8 Table 2.1: Previous researches related to mediating role of ESE Author Type Sample Mediating effect of ESE Zhao, Hills, and Seibert (2005) Empirical 265 MBA students ESE mediates the effects of perceptions of formal learning, PEE, and risk propensity on EI Kickul et al., (2009) Empirical 4292 high school ESE mediates the effect of students and 933 MBA gender on EI students Parsa, Parsa, and Parsa (2016) Empirical 307 academic employees in Iran ESE mediates the effect of mentoring on career advancement Oyugi (2015) Empirical 281 university final year students in Uganda ESE partially mediates the effect of EE on EI Malebana and Swanepoel (2014) Empirical 355 4th year undergraduate in South Africa ESE mediates the effect of EE on EI Shinnar, Hsu and Powell (2014) Empirical 249 students of introductory entrepreneurship courses ESE mediates the effect of EE on EI Hou, et al., (201) Empirical 727 universities students in China ESE mediates the effect of entrepreneurial passion and EE on EI Source: Author’s summary 2.2.2 Moderators of role models’ impact on ESE As mentioned earlier, many researches have shown that role model can pose a significantly positive impact on entrepreneurial self-efficacy (Bosma et al., 2012; Douglas & Shepherd, 2014). However, there also exist researches refuting the opinion that role model can influence individual’s belief in their own 9 entrepreneurship related capability (Hou et al., 2019; Laviolette & Radu Lefebvre, 2008). From conflicting results, it could be expected that certain moderating variables are involved in the process. As a matter of fact, many researches have digged deeper to explore what factors could be such moderators.. Karimi et al., (2013) indicate that role models’ impact on people’s thoughts and feelings towards entrepreneurship is greater when the influenced are women rather than men. Part of this result is confirmed by BarNir, Watson, and Hutchins (2011), which suggests that interaction with role models would have a stronger effect of increasing perceived self-efficacy for female. Besides gender, subjects’ characteristics are also considered. Having lower selfesteem and external locus of control would make the subject’s self-confidence more influenced by the people they admire (Brunel, 2017). Risk taking propensity also has positive association with start-up aspiration (Farrukh et al., 2018). Liu, Ma, and Li (2019) examine the moderating effect of role model’s successfulness and the distance between subjects and role models. The result shows that the more successful role models are, the bigger impact their stories can pose on subjects’ entrepreneurial intention. Meanwhile, idol role models – regarded as having far distance to subjects – tend to be more influential than peer role models – regarded as having short distance to subjects. Also analyzing the aspect of distance, but the distance is measured by actual interactions – activities in which role models and subjects can participate and interact with each other, Van Auken et al., (2006) state that if role models can involve subjects in more business discussions and professional activities, subjects’ entrepreneurial intention will become higher. Not only distance, but similarity between subjects and role models can also be involved as a moderating variable. Bosma et al., (2012) find out that role models with 10 higher level of similarity in terms of gender, sector, and nationality would create stronger influence over subjects. Another factor being put under consideration is previous entrepreneurial experience. According to Carr and Sequeira (2007), entrepreneurial experience involves participation in business environment such as doing internship at companies. Besides, entrepreneurial experience may also mean prior engagement in entrepreneurial activities, including identifying business opportunities or preparing and providing financial and human resources for business operations (Brunel, Laviolette, & RaduLefebvre, 2017) Bosma et al., (2012) take into account the role of previous entrepreneurial experience, stating that the enhancing effect that role model presence can have on perceived selfefficacy is lower for subjects of abundant entrepreneurial experience. This result is also shared by Brunel (2017). 2.3 Research gap A few researches have used entrepreneurial self-efficacy as mediator in explaining entrepreneurial intention. However, in most of those researches, independent variables are mostly entrepreneurship education or learning. Even though role models also carry out relatively similar educational functions (inspire and motivate, increase self-efficacy, provide guidelines for action, provide direct support or advice (Bosma et al., 2012)) only in a very limited number of cases, role model, or partly similar factor such as mentor, is brought in as independent variable. This research will fill in that gap by analyzing the ESE’s mediation effect upon the relationship between role model and entrepreneurial intention. Besides, in Vietnam, even though there are researches studying the impact of role models on entrepreneurial intentions or antecedents of entrepreneurial intentions of Vietnamese people (Van Trang, Do, & Luong, 2019; Tran & Korflesch, 2017), none of the researches have explored what factors would influence the strength of such 11