Culture and entrepreneurship intention of the youth in Vietnam
Abstract
Entrepreneurship is considered as the main source of economic development, poverty reduction
and job creation. There are many researches on the world has been studied this field for long
time, however, the concept of entrepreneurship seem to be fresh for Vietnamese scholar since
there is very limited number of research studying on Vietnamese entrepreneurship. There are
varieties of approach for studying entrepreneurship, this research has been conducted on the
cultural perspective to see how Vietnam national culture has influence on new business start-ups
of young people living in Ho Chi Minh city.
The research is based on previous qualitative study of Phan (2011) which has been located the
prominent and typical values of Vietnamese people. To continue, the quantitative research is
needed to identify the causal relationship between national culture and entrepreneurship of
youth. From the literature review, the relationship is formed with more three added moderate
factors including personal traits, motives, and environmental context.
A sample of 447 people including students, office staffs, and young entrepreneurs who are from
18 to 35 years old participated in research survey. Semi structure interview is employed for the
measurement formation and questionnaire design. Convinience and snowball samplings are used
for data collection. The technique of structural equational modeling is applied to identify the
causal relationships among factors.
The findings show that entrepreneurship intention of young people originates from the personal
traits which are influenced by Confucian work ethics, family culture values and personal
motivations. Confucian work ethics has no direct effect on entrepreneurship but it underlies and
directs the common thoughts and behaviors of Vietnamese people including starting a new
venture. The research is failed to identify the relationship between external environment and
entrepreneurship, therefore, it is suggested for the further study should have long term
perspective to see the effect of environment on new firm formation.