VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES NGUYEN THI PHUONG NGOC RESEARCH ON FACTORS AFFECTING ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTION OF STUDENTS IN THE REGIONAL UNIVERSITIES OF QUANG NGAI PROVINCE Major: Business Administration Major Code: 9.34.01.01 THESIS SUMMARY HA NOI - 2019 The work was completed at GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Supervisors: Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen An Ha Assoc Prof Dr Mai Ha Reviewer 1: Assoc Prof Dr Phan Chi Anh Reviewer 2: Prof Dr Ngo Thang Loi Reviewer 3: Prof Dr Ngo Xuan Binh The dissertation will be defended before the thesis review council of the Academy at the Graduate Academy of Social Sciences at day month hour year The thesis can be found at: - National Library of Vietnam - Library of Graduate Academy of Social Sciences minute, INTRODUCTION The importance of the topic Apparently, starting a business has been a news story of the country It is regarded as an important key to economic growth The development of enterprises in general and the system of small and medium-sized enterprises in particular is an important driving force for the country's economic development In fact, newly established enterprises not only contribute to the country's GDP growth but also create many new jobs, contributing to solving social problems In Vietnam, the contribution of new businesses, especially small and medium enterprises from the private sector accounts for nearly 50% of GDP and annually attracts about 90% of new employees to work [14] Therefore, in order to solve employment problems, reduce unemployment and increase the dynamism of the economy, it is necessary to promote the activity of starting a business Over the past years, the Government has launched many programs and policies to encourage and promote the establishment of businesses, support the development of small and medium-sized businesses with the goal of having at least million enterprises operating by 2020 To promote the activity of starting a business, a wide range of projects, programs and policies to support and encourage people, young people and students to execute this activity have been developed and organized such as VCCI's start-up program, Vietnam Young Entrepreneurs Association, the contest "Light up young business talent", and so on With many efforts from all levels, sectors and mass organizations, the entrepreneurial spirit of Vietnam has also achieved some encouraging results Specifically, according to the GEM report (Global Entreprenuership Monitor), the percentage of adults in Vietnam intending to start a business has increased from 18.2% in 2014 to 25% in 2017 and will continue to increase over the next years However, this increase is still lower than the average of 30.3% in resource-based developed countries and Vietnam ranks only 19 out of 54 economies [15] On the other hand, according to the latest press release on business development index for provinces and centrally-run cities in 2016, the number of newly established enterprises nationwide in 2016 reached a record with 110,100 enterprises, an increase of 16.2% compared to 2015 Areas with high growth rate of newly established enterprises compared to the whole country include: Northern Midlands and Mountains, 20.2%, Red River Delta 18.3%, The Southeast increased by 15.4%; However, Quang Ngai is among the provinces and cities with the lowest growth rate of newly established enterprises and one of the provinces and cities with high business dissolution rates of enterprises in 2016 which were 285 enterprises increased by 154.5% compared to 2015 Furthermore, based on the Vietnam Macroeconomic Report 2018 of the Institute for Economic and Policy Research (VEPR), in the whole year of 2018, there were 131,275 newly established enterprises nationwide, a slight increase of 3.5% in comparision with 2017 In 2018, the total number of enterprises which were temporarily suspended operation was 99,885 enterprises, up to 51% compared to the whole year of 2017 As a result, VEPR Director assessed that "the target of having million enterprises in 2020 is extremely difficult and even impossible when at the present time Vietnam only has about 600,000 businesses " In addition, interstingly, the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs said that by the end of 2017, the whole country had about 215,000 unemployed people with bachelor or higher degree (Dan Dan newspaper, 2018) Hence, in the situation of having an increasing number of unemployed undergraduate students, graduate students, and college graduates together with a low start-up rate and a modest number of enterprises like nowadays, carrying out in reality the methods to improve entrepreneurship spirit, promote entrepreneurship activity among students is very important and increasingly urgent to reduce the pressure on employment in society and enhance the nation’s economic growth In many countries around the world as well as Vietnam, the problem of starting a business in general and starting a business of students in particular are always a matter of the Government and universities’ special concern Furthermore, over the past several decades, various studies by Luthje and Franke (2003); Linan (2004); Linan and Chen (2009) recognized the important role of universities in developing and developing business ideas Luthje and Franke (2003) stated that: "Universities have an impact on business success" Meanwhile, Linan's research results (2004); Tam (2009); Ooi et al (2011) asserted that business education plays an important role in inspiring students towards business and pointed out that universities and higher education institutions are the solid foundations in developing and exploiting potential business people The reality in Vietnam shows that the business start-up education activity is currently happening vigorously but only stopped in some localities since it is organized by separate units and enterprises In fact, many programs not yet have a consensus on the content, and implementation to carry out business start-up education activities in a formal and regular way at the university level They seem to be open and are encapsulated in some elective subjects at some international and private schools such as RMIT University, Kent University, FPT University, Hoa Sen University, etc At universities in the Central region, entrepreneurship-oriented education as well as business start-up activities in students have not been focused and strongly developed Sadly, students have not bravely to apply and execute their ideas in reality After graduation, most students tend to apply for recruitment in active businesses rather than starting their own businesses In order to encourage and promote business start-up activity among students after graduation or even while studying in universities, it is necessary to know the reasons or factors affecting the formation of students’ entrepreneurial intention Additionally, through the review of studies on this issue, it can be said that the past decade has been a booming period of studies based on the theory of entrepreneurial intention with many different perspectives (see the summary table of studies in foreign countries in Annex 1) These studies are mainly concentrated in countries with developed market economies In reality, systems of market economy are formed synchronously and operate effectively, and business environment is favorable for business development However, the quantity of researches on business performance, potentials and plans for conducting business activities in transitioning economies in general and in Vietnam in particular are still small (see Summary of domestic research works in Appendix 2) Most studies have focused on one or a few aspects affecting students' intention to conduct business activities Moreover, very few studies have combined analysis, synthesis and discovery of factors that influence entrepreneurial intention under the simultaneous impact of elements related to start-up environment, directional educational factors towards business and factors related to personal characteristics towards students of different majors Besides, regional culture and business environment of different regions also have different influences on the spirit of starting a business From the above reasons, the study "Research factors affecting entrepreneurial intention of students in the regional universities of Quang Ngai province" aims to lay a scientific principle for the planning of policies to create environment and identify solutions to stimulate students' entrepreneurial spirit and mobilize the young and intellectual resources of students for building up the socio-economic development of the country In fact, this issue is urgent and particularly important in the present context Research objectives and reseach mission of the thesis 2.1 Reseach objectives The purpose of the study is to discover and measure the factors affecting the entrepreneurial intention of students from universities in Quang Ngai province; thereby proposing solutions to increase awareness, improve entrepreneurship spirit and promote activity of starting a business among students in the current context 2.2 Research mission - Systematize and develop theoretical and practical issues about the intention to start a business - Develop research models and hypotheses to study the factors affecting entrepreneurial intention of students from universities in Quang Ngai province - Conducting field surveys, using and analyzing the results of actual survey data to determine the influencing factors as well as the level of the impact of these factors on students' intention to start a business in Quang Ngai province - From the results of this research, the author proposes some implications and solutions for students, universities and macro management agencies in the planning and implementation of programs and policies to increase awareness, knowledge, improve entrepreneurship and promote activity of starting a business among students Research subjects and research scope of the thesis 3.1 Research subjects The study examines theoretical and practical issues of entrepreneurial intention, and factors affecting the entrepreneurial intention of students 3.2 Research scope - Scope of the research: The thesis focuses on researching issues directly related to business planning, the main factors affecting students' intention to start a business - Scope of research space: the thesis is limited to researching universities in Quang Ngai province - Scope of study time: The entire study including theoretical research and fieldwork was conducted in years from June 2016 to June 2019 However, the commune survey activities towards students to collect primary data was conducted from January 2018 to May 2018 This is to ensure topicality for the research results - Scope of the research object: The dissertation studied students from the first years to the fourth year of two majors: Economics - Business Administration and Engineering - Technology Research methodology of the thesis - Chapters and of the thesis use the method of document research, analysis and synthesis methods to collect information about previous research works, the theoretical basis of the intention to start a business, and factors affecting entrepreneurial intention, etc - In Chapter 3, the author implements qualitative methods by carrying out focus group discussion and in-depth interviews (interviews about the appropriateness of influencing factors, sufficiency of observed variables, etc) At the same time, the author conducted a small quantitative study (150 students) which were used as statistic to adjust the observed variables and measure the factors affecting students' entrepreneurial intention Thereby model will be built and checked in terms of the original suitability before conducting formal research on large samples In chapter 3, the author also uses descriptive statistical methods, using absolute numbers, relative numbers, average numbers, etc to analyze the real situation students’ opinions from universities in Quang Ngai province abou factors affecting entrepreneurial intention - Chapter 4, based on the official quantitative research data conducted through distributing the questionnaire survey o students The author uses SPSS 22 software to to analyze data and assess reliability and value of a scale of factors affecting students' entrepreneurial intention; test models and research hypotheses; test whether or not there is a difference in factors affecting students' entrepreneurial intention according to the demographic characteristics of students through the sample - Chapter 5, the thesis uses the method of document research, analysis and synthesis methods to collect information about the government’s mechanisms and policies on encouraging entrepreneurship activities in general and entrepreneurship activities of students in particular They are seen as the base for the author to make policy implications and solutions for promoting entrepreneurship spirit among students New contribution to the science of the thesis - Firstly, the thesis has proposed a research process on factors affecting students' intention to start a business, contributing to enriching and clarifying ways to identify the factors that affect entrepreneurial intention in general and students in particular - Secondly, the research has developed a "Business Education" scale through the implementation to the scale to collect student information At the same time, the thesis also develops the scale "Intending to start a business" of students The results of these two new scales have been tested for reliability and significance in the research model Other studies related to the field of entrepreneurship of students can reuse this scale to study - Thirdly, the research has identified some main factors affecting as well as the level of the impact of factors related to students' intention to start a business including "personality characteristics", "Attitudes towards business behavior "," Business education "," Awareness of behavior control "," Social status of business owners "and" Capital sources " The results of this research can be used to continue research in other similar studies - Fourthly, the research results show that the factor "Opinion / Subjective standard" has no statistical significance in the research model This empirical research result of the thesis differs from previous studies, because in most of the studies in the world when applying this factor to the research model, the results are significant and positively affect the student's intention to start a business In Vietnam, previous studies in Can Tho, Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong or in Hanoi have shown that this factor has a significant impact on students’ entrepreneurial intention However, for students in Quang Ngai province in particular and in the Central region, this factor does not have the decisive significance to the formation of entrepreneurial intention Through qualitative research results (group discussions, in-depth interviews), this can explain the different influences of national culture or regional culture on personality or independence in the decision of an individual,or particularly, the matter of starting a business The result suggests that other studies should retest this factor in a similar context in the future - Fifthly, the study proposes a feasible and scientific-based solution system to promote entrepreneurial spirit of students from universities in Quang Ngai in particular and can be expanded in the Central region and the whole country in general Theoretical and practical meanings of the thesis - Theoretically, the thesis provides a scientific basis in the field of research on the intention to start a business, summarizing the theory of concepts related to the research topic; developing scales system, testing theoretical models and research hypotheses on the main factors affecting the entrepreneurial intention of students in Quang Ngai province - Practically, the thesis has assessed and analyzed the status of awareness about the problem of starting up a business and entrepreneurial intention of studnts; discovered and measured the factors and the impact level of factors affecting the entrepreneurial intention of students from universities in Quang Ngai province The results of the study provide policymakers and universities with a comprehensive view about the factors influencing students' entrepreneurial intentions Moreover, they help to lay a scientific basis for the planning of training strategies in universities, creating a learning environment that stimulates the development of creative business ideas and entrepreneurship spirit among students 7 Research structure In addition to the Introduction, Conclusion, References and Appendix, the thesis is divided into chapters: Chapter 1: Overview on the factors affecting entrepreneurial intention Chapter 2: Theoretical and practical basis for entrepreneurial intention, models and research hypotheses Chapter 3: Research design Chapter 4: Analysis of factors affecting entrepreneurial intention of students from universities in Quang Ngai province Chapter 5: Orientations and solutions to promote entrepreneurial intention of students from universities in Quang Ngai province Chapter OVERVIEW ON THE FACTORS AFFECTING ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTION 1.1 Overview of research abroad and domestically on the factors affecting entrepreneurial intention 1.1.1 Overview of abroad researches For many years, the field of business start-up research (MEET), entrepreneurial intention have been extremely interested by researchers around the world, especially researches on the factors affecting entrepreneurial intention of the youth, students The researches have illustrated factors that influence on the purpose of entrepreneurial intention as varied from environment, culture, institution, personality, personal characteristics and other factors By examining various documents and studies, the author realized that there are some main approaches including: (1) personal characteristics / learners' personality (personality, attitudes, perceptions, gender, etc), (2) educational program (entrepreneurship education program or support from universities, etc), (3) environmental impact (culture, politics - society, economy, lawetc and (4) combination of the above directions (personal characteristics, environment, education, etc) Chapter THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL BASIS FOR ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTION, MODELS AND RESEARCH HYPOTHESES 2.1 Rationale for entrepreneurial intention 2.1.1 Starting a business Starting a business in this research will be understood as an individual (alone or with others) who dares to take risks, and creatively take advantage of market opportunities to create a new business with many values for society 2.1.2 Entrepreneurial intention 2.1.2.1 Students and some basic characteristics related to starting a business 2.1.2.2 Entrepreneurial intentions of students The student's intention to start a business is the premise, the willingness of students to conduct business intentionally with the desire to create valuable products and services to meet society’s needs 2.1.2.2 Some theoretical background models about the entrepreneurial intention  Theory of Reasoned Action - TRA  Theory of Planned Behavior - TPB  Shapero – Krueger Model of intentions 2000  Luthje Franke model of entrepreneurial intentions 2003 2.2 Factors affecting entrepreneurial intention of students Summary of theories about behavioral intentions, intention to start a business as well as the factors affecting the intention to start a business in the above studies show that, although there is no consistent homogeneity in researchers’ points about factors affecting students' intention to start a business, even their names, they can be divided into two following ways: - The first direction, in terms of the impact method, it consists of groups: (1) group of direct influencing factors; (2) group of indirect influencing factors; (3) group of factors that directly and indirectly affect - The second direction, as regards of grouping individual factors into general factors affecting students' business plan, they can be divided as 11 follows: (1) group of individual impact factors (self-capacity) ) and (2) group of environmental impact factors Specifically: + Group of personal factors: Attitude towards business behavior, Perception of behavior control or Perception of feasibility when conducting business, characteristics of personality traits, Demographic characteristics + Group of environmental factors: Social status of business owners, Educational environment of universities, Economic environment and supporting policies of the State on start-up, Subjective standard or comments and opinions from surrounding people like family, friends, colleagues,etc, on startup issues 2.3 Proposing models and hypotheses for research on factors affecting entrepreneurial intention of students 2.3.1 Research model In order to increase the predictive capability of planned behavioral theory, in this research the author proposes to study the factors influencing students' intention to start a business, including: (1) Personal factors include Personal characteristics, Attitude towards business behavior, Awareness of behavior control (2) Factors belonging to universities are Business Education (learning environment, training programs / Support for business education at universities) (3) Factors of start-up environment include Subjective Standards / Opinions of surrounding people (opinions of family, friends, relatives about supporting or hindering students' intention to start a business ), Social status of business owners (recognition of the role and position of entrepreneurs in society), other external factors (regimes, policies to encourage start-up of the government, government local,…) In addition, the study also proposes to consider some demographic characteristics such as gender, field of study, school year (the first, second, third and fourth-year students), career of parents influencing on entrepreneurial intention of students 2.3.2 Research hypotheses  Personality Characteristics H1: Character traits that positively affect students' intention to start a business That means students who aspire to have a high position in society 12 or want to be respected and known by people or the higher the willingness they will accept to take risks in doing business, the higher entrepreneurial intention they will have to start a business  Attitudes towards business behavior H2: Attitudes toward business behavior have a positive influence on students' intention to start a business That means the more students are interested in starting a business and realize that becoming an entrepreneur is more beneficial than doing other jobs, the higher entrepreneurial intention they will have to start a business  Awareness of behavior control H3: Perception of behavioral control / Perception of feasibility has a positive influence on students' intention to start a business That means when students find it easy to be self-employed, and feel confident that they will succeed when starting a business or feel that they can completely control their business activities when starting a business, etc, there will be a higher chance of students’ intention to start a business  Factors Business education / Educational support H4: Business education / Perception of the educational support of entrepreneurship has a positive effect on students' intention to start a business That means when universities provide students with more knowledge about starting a business, there are many activities to encourage students to be entrepreneurial, and the school learning environment inspires students to start a business, there will be a higher chance of students’ intention to start a business  Factors Opinion of surrounding people / Subjective standards H5: Opinions of surrounding people have a positive influence on students' intention to start a business That means the more support students have from their family, friends, as well as the people who are important to them in terms of starting a business, the higher entrepreneurial intention they will have to start a business  Social status of business owners H6: Social status of business owners positively affects students' intention to start a business That means when becoming an entrepreneur, students are perceived positively and highly appreciated by the society, which helps to increase the students' intention to start a business 13 2.4 Experience on promoting the entrepreneurial spirit of students at universities around the world 2.4.1 Experience from US universities 2.4.2 Experience from Finnish universities 2.4.3 Experience from German universities 2.4.4 Experience from the university of Taiwan 2.4.5 Experience from Thai Lan’s universities Chapter RESEARCH DESIGN 3.1 Research process  Step 1: Overview research  Step 2: Preliminary research  Step 3: Official quantitative research  Step 4: Discuss research results, interview case studies  Step 5: Conclusion and propose solutions 3.2 Preliminary research 3.2.1 Set up the survey (questionnaire) 3.2.3 Preliminary research results The members of the discussion group agreed that: + The factors affecting students' intention to start a business which are proposed by the author in the theoretical model in chapter (Figure 2.5) are the main factors influencing intention of students from universities in Quang Ngai to start a business + The observed variables which measure the factors influencing students' intention to start a business and are proposed by the author reflected the basic properties of these factors + On the other hand, the discussion group also has opinions, in addition to the factors proposed by the author, there is another factor that also affects the intention of students who want to start a business, which is the issue of capital to start a business As a result, the theoretical model of factors affecting students' intention to start a business is amended and added the factor "Business capital" and hypothesis H7 14 Hypothesis H7: Business capital has a positive influence on students' intention to start a business That means when students can easily raise capital for business or can accumulate capital to implement their ideas to start a business, the intention to start a business of them will increase (Figure 3.2) 3.3 Official quantitative research 3.3.1 Data collection 3.3.1.1 Determine the sample size Applying the recommended minimum sample size calculations suggested by different researchers in this study, to ensure reliability of data to perform analyses such as Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) as well as multivariate regression analysis, the author carried out with a minimum sample (ntt) of 850 observations 3.3.1.2 Data collection 895 questionnaires were sent to students of 03 universities in Quang Ngai Province The division of the number of each school’s questionnaires is based on the actual number of students at the time of the survey, specifically: 560 surveys were sent to students majoring in Economics Business Administration of Finance - Accounting University and Industrial university of Ho Chi Minh city - Quang Ngai campus (equivalent to about 10% of students in the field of Economics - Business Administration of these two schools); 335 surveys were sent to students majoring in Engineering - Technology of Industrial university of Ho Chi Minh city Quang Ngai Campus and Pham Van Dong University (respectively taking about 10% of students in the field of Engineering - Technology of these two schools) 3.3.2 Data processing method 3.3.2.1 Descriptive statistics 3.3.2.2 Evaluate the scale of factors by analyzing Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of reliability and analyzing EFA discovery factor 3.3.3.3 Testing hypotheses 3.3.3.4 Testing differences in students’ intention to start a business 15 Chapter ANALYSIS OF FACTORS AFFECTING THE INTENTION TO START A BUSINESS OF STUDENTS FROM UNIVERSITIES IN QUANG NGAI PROVINCE 4.1 Situation on building and developing a startup ecosystem in Quang Ngai province in recent years 4.2 Analyze current situation of factors affecting entrepreneurial intention of students from universities in Quang Ngai province 4.3 Test the reliability of the scale and analyze the exploratory factors affecting entrepreneurial intention of students 4.3.1 Testing the reliability of the scale with Cronbach’s alpha * Test the reliability of the scale by the first Cronbach’s alpha * Testing the reliability of the scale with the second Cronbach’s alpha The results of the second Cronbach's alpha test for the scale Characteristics (Appendix 3) show that all the scales have reliability (Cronbach's alpha> 0.6 and the total correlation coefficient> 0.3) Thus, after testing the reliability of the scales by Cronbach’s alpha, except for observed variable ĐTC6 which was eliminated, all observed variables are retained In particular, the remains of the total scale for factors affecting entrepreneurial intention of students from universities in Quang Ngai province are 27 observed variables and the scale to meassure the intention to start a business (or entrepreneurial intention) includes observed variables (Table 4.9) Table 4.9: The results of the reliabiliy testing of scales using Cronbach’s alpha No Scale Symbol Attitude toward business behavior Opinions of TĐHĐH VKD YKNXQ Number of observed variables Coefficient of Cronbach’s alpha 0,846 0,867 16 The smallest coefficient of the sum-variables 0,600 (TĐHĐHVKD1) 0,698 surrounding people Cognitive behavioral control Social status of business owners NTKSH V 0,759 ĐVXH 0,901 Capital NV 0,794 Education GD 0,914 Characteristics, personality traits Entrepreneurial intention ĐĐTC 0,896 DĐKN 0,890 (YKNXQ1) 0,474 (NTKSHV3) 0,777 (ĐVXH1) 0,579 (NV1) 0,737 (GD1) 0,611 (ĐĐTC4) 0,656 (DĐKN5) (Source: Author’s analysis results of research data) 4.3.2 Exploratory Factor Analysis * A scale of factors affecting the student's intention to start a business After checking the reliability of the scales by Cronbach's Alpha analysis, the scale of the factors affecting the entrepreneurial intention of students from universities in Quang Ngai province was measured by 27 observed variables for the seven components of the scale which are: "Attitudes toward business behavior", "Opinions of people around", "Awareness of behavior control", "Social status of business owners "," Capital source "," Business education "and" Characteristics, personal trait " Actually, factor analysis is used to assess the convergent degree of observed variables according to these components * Scale intended to start a business by students The factor analysis results for the scale of students' intention to start a business with one factor drawn and identified as the factor of Starting a business (including observed variables) 4.4 Testing models and hypotheses about factors influencing entrepreneurial intention of students from universities in Quang Ngai province 17 4.4.1 Verify the relationship among variables (Pearson correlation coefficient) 4.4.2 Linear regression analysis Table 4.11: Regression analysis results Impact factors Regression constant Characteristics, personality traits Attitudes towards business behavior Business education Cognitive behavioral control Social status Business capital Standardized regression coefficient (B) Standard deviation Standardized regression coefficient (β) t Sig -.358 115 - -3.102 002 374 032 363 11.871 000 1.937 220 028 217 7.842 000 1.597 163 022 185 7.299 000 1.334 179 027 171 6.509 000 1.440 090 059 028 025 093 064 3.215 2.397 001 017 1.737 1.490 R2 R2 calibration Significance level (Sig In ANOVA) Statistical value F (F in ANOVA) Durbin-Watson coefficient 594 591 0.000 205.501 1.789 (Source: Author’s analysis results of research data) 18 VIF The analytical results in Table 4.11 show that, with independent variables included in the analysis, only variables directly and positively affect students' intention to start a business were found in this study and they are organized according to the degree of influence from big to small level as follows: (1) "Characteristics", (2) "Attitudes toward business behavior", (3) "Business education", ( 4) "Awareness of behavior control", (5) "Social status of business owners", (6) "Capital" with Sig = 0,000