The role of personality traits in business intentions among active women entrepreneurs
Abstract
Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship are important for economic growth and development. Yet insufficient attention has been paid to psychological characteristics such as personality characteristics as factors for women entrepreneurship in emerging economies. This study aims to investigate the associations between women entrepreneurs' business intentions and their personality traits. This study utilizes binomial logistic regression for hypothesis testing using the unique data set from a survey of small and medium manufacturing enterprises located in nine cities and provinces from three main geographical regions of Vietnam. The findings show that personality factors can be important for women entrepreneurs' business intentions. Unlike some other studies, the personality trait conscientiousness is found negatively correlated with women's entrepreneurial intentions. External factors such as local institutional quality and business networks have been found to stimulate women entrepreneurial intentions. The finding also raises concerns over the undergraduate training programs that need to be improved to make future students more confident in planning their business intentions if entrepreneurship is their career choice. The findings provide a key contribution to the existing literature of entrepreneurship in the context of an emerging economy where studies on women's entrepreneurship are scarce.
1 INTRODUCTION
Entrepreneurship is both theoretically and empirically credited as the engine of economic and social development. In recent theories, entrepreneurship serves as the missing link between knowledge investments and economic growth (Audretsch et al., 2006), and empirical evidence from developed and developing countries generally supports that connection (Amini Sedeh et al., 2022; Van Stel, 2006). However, little is known about the micro-underpinnings and psychological characteristics of entrepreneurs in emerging economies despite the numerous studies on entrepreneurship (Estrin et al., 2019; Inkizhinov et al., 2021).
The entrepreneurship landscape in Vietnam changed dramatically with the enactment of the 1999 Enterprise Law, in particular, nonstate enterprises have become dominant in the country's economy thereafter (General Statistics Office, 2021). Studies on domestic entrepreneurship have attracted increasing attention from domestic scholars perhaps just over the past decade and many aspects of this area are claimed to be under-researched, for example, technological application, gender, psychological characteristics (Gooty & Huong, 2021; Vuong et al., 2020). OECD (2021) reports that the share of nascent entrepreneurs in Vietnam is exceptionally high among emerging economies, but entrepreneurial activities of existing firms in Vietnam are lower than that in most other counterparts. Thus, studies on the motivations for entrepreneurial activities of active entrepreneurs in Vietnam are needed to contribute to the literature on entrepreneurship in the context of emerging economies.
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) account for over 97% of the total number of acting enterprises in Vietnam (General Statistics Office, 2021), and it is estimated that 21% of SMEs are women-led (Ministry of Planning and Investment, 2020). Aside from economic and technological constraints which SMEs normally face, psychological aspects of women entrepreneurship have recently been raised and identified as an issue arising from the country's context and requiring further study (Gooty & Huong, 2021; Ministry of Planning and Investment, 2020). To the author's best knowledge, there is only a few studies on women entrepreneurial intention in Vietnam (see Thi Huong et al., 2022; Nguyen et al., 2021; Vuong et al., 2020), and the study samples included mainly university students or self-employed women in some rural areas.
This study aims at investigating the personality factors explaining business intentions among women entrepreneurs in Vietnam. The contributions of this study are as follows. First, this study on Vietnamese women entrepreneurs contributes to the knowledge of entrepreneurship in an emerging economic context where studies on women's entrepreneurship are scarce. Second, our study contributes to the understanding of personality traits as factors explaining women entrepreneurs' business intentions in the context of an emerging economy. Evidence from previous research shows that personality traits are among key factors on entrepreneurial intentions (Murugesan & Jayavelu, 2017). Findings from the study by Farrukh et al. (2017) and Schlaegel et al. (2021) show that the role of personality traits for entrepreneurial intention is inconsistent and varies according to country-specific contexts. Third, many studies in this area conduct analysis on the samples of students or employees, whereas this study uses the sample of active women entrepreneurs. Trevelyan (2011) believes that the sample of actual entrepreneurs is a strength of study on entrepreneurship though it is normally difficult to identify and secure their participation in the survey. Fourth, this study also highlights the role of entrepreneur's background, firm's characteristics, and business network connection in predicting women's entrepreneurial intentions. Fifth, the study sample included data on the Big Five Inventory (BFI) items that, to our best knowledge, are not found in other existing surveys on active entrepreneurs in Vietnam.
The results from the employed models confirm the consistent effects of women entrepreneurs' personality traits on their new business intentions. Women entrepreneurs with higher scores on openness to experience and extraversion are predicted to have higher odds of planning to initiate new business projects, while those with higher scores on conscientiousness tend to have lower odds of having new business intentions. While their university background does not help to explain their business intentions, women entrepreneurs are found less likely to think of a new business project when they are older. The larger the firm size, the higher probability that women entrepreneurs plan to create new ventures, but the firm age does not help to explain the women owners' business intentions. External factors such as the business network connections and the local institutional quality are found to positively correlate with women entrepreneurs' planning for business projects.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES
2.1 Personality traits and their relation to entrepreneurial intentions
Personality is increasingly viewed as an important psychological factor for individuals' economic decisions and their achieved outcomes (Laouiti et al., 2022). Personality traits as inner psychological characteristics have an important role in explaining entrepreneurial intentions and behaviors. Some studies confirmed individuals' personality characteristics as positive predictors of entrepreneurial intention (e.g., Bazkiaei et al., 2020; Zhao & Seibert, 2006), whereas few studies showed the small predictive validity of personality traits (Krueger et al., 2000). This situation implies the inconsistency in findings related to the relation between personality traits and entrepreneurial intentions. Thus, further empirical studies on this relationship are necessary.
Numerous studies use the BFI to measure personality traits when examining the relationship of personality to entrepreneurial intentions and performance (i.e., Farrukh et al., 2017; Llewellyn & Wilson, 2003; Zhao et al., 2010). The BFI includes five broad dimensions, namely extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience. The formats of BFI adopted by researchers vary by the number of items used, but the shorter versions tend to be preferred due to limited response time of respondents, especially when they are actual entrepreneurs (Rammstedt & John, 2007). The next subsections discuss how each BFI dimension is associated with entrepreneurial intentions.
2.2 Openness to experience and entrepreneurial intention
The extent to which an individual is open-minded, creative, intellectually curious, and so forth (John, 2021). Similar to conscientiousness, openness to experience is also claimed to be strongly and consistently correlated with entrepreneurial intentions (Zhao et al., 2010). Murugesan and Jayavelu (2017) report that higher scores on openness to experience increase the individuals' entrepreneurial intentions.
Hypothesis 1.Openness to experience is positively related to entrepreneurial intentions among women entrepreneurs.
2.3 Conscientiousness and entrepreneurial intention
The extent to which an individual complies with norms and rules, well controls their desires, and is persistent to achieve tasks and goals (John, 2021). In their meta-analysis of studies on the relationship of personality to entrepreneurship, Zhao et al. (2010) find that conscientiousness seems to be strongly and consistently associated with entrepreneurial intentions and entrepreneurial performance. One noteworthy characteristic of people with high conscientiousness is their deliberation (Minkov et al., 2019). Fisher and Neubert (2023) claim that the deliberation in entrepreneurship reflects the motivation to enter a new venture based on a rational analysis of the context. It is possible to infer that entrepreneurs of high conscientiousness are keen to think of a new business plan if the conditions are favorable or they may choose to do nothing if otherwise. Thus, conscientiousness may be either positively or negatively associated with entrepreneurs' new business intentions.
Hypothesis 2.Conscientiousness is either positively or negatively associated with entrepreneurial intentions among women entrepreneurs.
2.4 Extraversion and entrepreneurial intention
The extent to which an individual is energetic in exploring social and material life, assertive, gregarious, and positively emotional (John, 2021). A study using representative German household data shows that extraverts have higher tendency to start their own businesses (Caliendo et al., 2014). This evidence shows that an entrepreneurial career may offer more stimulating and exciting experience than many other waged occupations, and thus entrepreneurship is more appealing to extraversion people. It is expected that the personality trait of extraversion to be positively associated with entrepreneurial intention.
Hypothesis 3.Extraversion is positively related to entrepreneurial intentions among women entrepreneurs.
2.5 Agreeableness and entrepreneurial intention
The extent to which an individual is helpful and generous to other people, modest, and has a trusting and good nature (John, 2021). Antoncic et al. (2015) report that entrepreneurs may be less agreeable than non-entrepreneurs. The reason comes from the fact that entrepreneurs must strongly compete for the survival of their new ventures, and thus they may behave harshly towards their employees and business partners (Zhao et al., 2010). In the contrary, Murugesan and Jayavelu (2017) find that the personality trait of agreeableness is positively related to entrepreneurial intention. In the Vietnam context, evidence shows that firms may rely on business networks that are built on trust to solve their business problems (McMillan & Woodruff, 1999). Thus, individuals' scores on agreeableness and entrepreneurial intentions are expected to be either positively or negatively correlated.
Hypothesis 4.Agreeableness is either positively or negatively related to entrepreneurial intentions among women entrepreneurs.
2.6 Neuroticism and entrepreneurial intention
The extent to which an individual is uneven tempered, uncalm, and fearful (John, 2021). By the nature of their roles, entrepreneurs struggle for the survival of their ventures, and such endeavors may be more stressful when their firms operate in unstructured markets (Hussein & Aziz, 2017). Individuals with higher neuroticism are more sensitive and psychologically vulnerable to uncomfortable feedback and small failures (Zhao et al., 2010). Empirical evidence shows that individuals' lower scores on neuroticism positively predict their entrepreneurial behavior (Tian, 2019).
Hypothesis 5.Neuroticism is negatively correlated with entrepreneurial intentions among women entrepreneurs.
2.7 Control variables
Zhao et al. (2010) suggest including personal social-demographic variables and the firm's characteristics in studies on personality traits and entrepreneurial intentions to enhance the validity of results. In addition to entrepreneurs' background, their social network connections are also found to contribute to their intentions to initiate a new project (Quan, 2012). In the context of emerging economies, the role of local government is emphasized as to foster the local economy so that entrepreneurs are more pessimistic about the local business prospect and act upon their entrepreneurial intentions. Krueger and Brazeal (1994) highlight that the environment supportive of entrepreneurs is essential for entrepreneurship to flourish. Thus, in this study, the control variables include entrepreneurs' background information, firm characteristics, and external factors such as business network connection and local institutional quality as control variables (see Table 2).
3 METHODS
3.1 Data and sample characteristics
This study uses a survey data of manufacturing SMEs (VNSME) across nine cities and provinces of Vietnam. The sample cities and provinces include Ha Noi, Phu Tho, Hai Phong, Quang Nam, Nghe An, Khanh Hoa, Lam Dong, Ho Chi Minh City, and Long An. These cities and provinces represent all main geographical regions of the country, which are the North, the Central, and the South. The 2015 VNSME collected data from 2647 firms in the year 2015 under the administration of the Central Institute for Economic Management, the Institute of Labor Science and Social Affairs, the Development Economics Research Group at the University of Copenhagen, and the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research. Although its sample size is smaller compared to other national surveys, that is, the enterprise survey conducted by the General Statistics Office, the 2015 VNSME has a unique feature, that is the inclusion of BFI items. To our best knowledge, there is no survey on active entrepreneurs in Vietnam that has the similar geographical scope and uses BFI questions (see Table A1 for BFI questions and items used in the survey). The sample in use includes women entrepreneurs between 18 and 59 years of age. Although the statutory retirement age of women in Vietnam during the survey period was 55 years, World Bank and ILSSA (2009) report that Vietnamese women can staying as healthy and productive in work as men when the former is under 60 years of age.
Data for the measurement of local institutional quality comes from the Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) on Vietnam's business environment. The PCI is an annual business survey jointly administered by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to assess and rank the quality of economic governance by provincial authorities in fostering local business environment for development of the private firms. The overall PCI has 10 subindices as follows: (1) entry costs for business start-up; (2) access to land and security of business premises; (3) transparency of business environment; (4) informal costs; (5) time requirements for bureaucratic procedures and inspections; (6) crowding out of private sector due to policy biases; (7) proactivity and creativity of local authorities in solving problems for businesses; (8) quality of business support services; (9) labor training policies; and (10) legal procedures for resolving dispute. In this study, the local institutional quality score of each city or province was collected from the report of year 2014.
3.2 Methods of measures and analysis
According to Ligthelm (2008), entrepreneurship includes the combination of innovation and personal initiative which leads to the introduction of new products and services, enhancement of existing businesses, and creating new ventures. In this study, women's entrepreneurial intention, the dependent variable, is a dummy variable measured based on the question in the VNSME questionnaire that asks the women entrepreneur whether she plans to start up new business projects/product lines in the near future. Women's entrepreneurial intentions take value 1 if the answer to the question is “Yes” and value 0 otherwise. Explanation on how to measure the BFI dimensions is shown next.
In three survey waves of 2011, 2013, and 2015, the VNSME included short versions of established psychological personality inventories only in the 2015 survey. This offers the opportunity to explicitly study entrepreneurs' personality traits and to relate them to a rich set of personal socioeconomic variables and firm characteristics. In the 2015 survey, respondents were asked to what extent they agreed with different statements about themselves based on 7-point Likert scales. Fifteen items assessed the BFI, three items for each trait. The score of each BFI is calculated by averaging the Likert ratings of the items for that trait. Table A1 shows the wording of all statements measuring personality traits. There are four items of which the scale is inverted. Figure A1 illustrates the score distribution for each BFI.
The scale reliability of the constructs based on Cronbach's α is shown in Table 1. According to Smidt and Roux (2015), using Cronbach's α is generally sufficient for 3-item scales. Table 1 also shows the Cronbach's α coefficients from Buehler et al. (2019), who conducted a study on Vietnam and Thailand using BFI, for comparison. The BFI is a widely established framework for the description of personality traits (Hahn et al., 2012), but the Cronbach's α values for the three-item BFI version are normally low, reflecting the breadth of these broad constructs of personality traits (Lang et al., 2011). To test the hypotheses a binomial logistic regression was performed with entrepreneurial intention as the dependent variable, personality traits as independent variables, and control variables. The definition of these variables is shown in Table 2.
| Personality dimension | Cronbach's α | Cronbach's α from Buehler et al. (2019) | Cronbach's α from Hahn et al. (2012) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Openness | 0.85 | 0.60 | 0.58 |
| Conscientiousness | 0.59 | 0.55 | 0.60 |
| Extraversion | 0.61 | 0.42 | 0.76 |
| Agreeableness | 0.56 | 0.58 | 0.44 |
| Neuroticism | 0.49 | 0.56 | 0.66 |
- Source: Author.
| Variable | Definition | Mean/Proportion | SD |
|---|---|---|---|
| EI | Entrepreneurial intention (Yes: 1) | 23. 05% | |
| OPEN | Openness to experience | 3.87 | 1.46 |
| CONS | Conscientiousness | 5.61 | 1.04 |
| EXTRA | Extraversion | 4.30 | 0.99 |
| AGREE | Agreeableness | 4.70 | 0.88 |
| NEURO | Neuroticism | 3.10 | 0.96 |
| AGE | Age of entrepreneurs (year) | 42.07 | 9.70 |
| UNIVERSITY | Entrepreneur has a university education level (Yes: 1) | 36.99% | |
| FIRM AGE | Firm age (year) | 15.26 | 9.11 |
| FIRM SCALE | Number of full-time employees | 16.51 | 30.05 |
| ROA | Return on assets in the previous year | 0.30 | 1.19 |
| SECTOR | Production sector | ||
| Food products and beverages (Reference category) | 1.95% | ||
| Textiles, wearing apparel, leather, and related products | 37.30% | ||
| Electronic products and electrical equipment | 14.04% | ||
| Metal products, machinery, and equipment | 3.48% | ||
| Wood and furniture | 13.01% | ||
| Manufacture of other nonmetallic mineral products | 9.73% | ||
| Paper and paper products | 2.77% | ||
| Rubber, plastics, and chemical products | 3.79% | ||
| Printing and related activities | 10.14% | ||
| Others | 3.79% | ||
| NETWORK | Member of a business association (Yes: 1) | 7.68% | |
| INSTITUTION | Local institutional quality scores (year 2014) | ||
| Ha Noi | 58.89 | ||
| Ho Chi Minh City | 62.73 | ||
| Hai Phong | 58.25 | ||
| Long An | 61.37 | ||
| Phu Tho | 57.72 | ||
| Quang Nam | 59.97 | ||
| Nghe An | 58.82 | ||
| Khanh Hoa | 59.78 | ||
| Lam Dong | 58.79 |
- Source: Calculated from VNSME 2015 and VCCI and USAID (2015).
4 RESULTS
This section provides the results from descriptive statistics and regression analysis. Table 2 shows summary statistics of variables in the data set. Around one-fifth of sample women entrepreneurs indicated that they had plans to start up new business projects or product lines. The respondents' average age is about 42 years and over one-third of them obtain a university degree. The average firm age at the time of survey is around 15 years which corresponds with the number of years that the 1999 Enterprise Law was enacted. The sample firms' main products fall into 10 groups in which the group of textiles, wearing apparel, leather, and related products have the largest proportion of firms in the study sample. The sample firms are generally small enterprises because they employed around 14–15 full-time employees. It is noteworthy that the sample entrepreneurs seem to be less connected to the business networks because only a small fraction of the sample firms reported joining a business association. The local institutional quality score of Ho Chi Minh City is the highest among the sample cities and provinces, but the difference in the announced scores among these locations is relatively small.
Table 3 presents empirical results that show whether women entrepreneurs have expressed entrepreneurial intentions. The reported values are odd ratios marked by p-values and standard errors in brackets. Model 1 of Table 3 is the benchmark regression, where only the personality traits of entrepreneurs are included. The control variables are then gradually added to form three other models. The results from four models confirm the consistent effects of women entrepreneurs' personality traits on their new business intentions.
| Business intention | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (1) | (2) | (3) | (4) | |
| Personality traits | ||||
| OPEN | 1.30*** (0.07) | 1.25*** (0.07) | 1.18*** (0.07) | 1.19*** (0.08) |
| CONS | 0.75*** (0.06) | 0.76*** (0.06) | 0.78*** (0.06) | 0.78*** (0.07) |
| EXTRA | 1.16* (0.10) | 1.17* (0.10) | 1.18* (0.10) | 1.18* (0.10) |
| AGREE | 1.06 (0.11) | 1.07 (0.11) | 1.10 (0.11) | 1.09 (0.11) |
| NEURO | 1.07 (0.09) | 1.08 (0.10) | 1.07 (0.10) | 1.08 (0.10) |
| Personal characteristics | ||||
| AGE | 0.97*** (0.01) | 0.98** (0.01) | 0.98** (0.01) | |
| UNIVERSITY | 1.38* (0.24) | 0.87 (0.18) | 0.84 (0.17) | |
| Firm characteristics | ||||
| FIRM AGE | 1.00 (0.01) | 1.00 (0.01) | ||
| FIRM SCALE (log) | 1.40*** (0.11) | 1.31*** (0.11) | ||
| ROA | 1.00 (0.06) | 1.03 (0.07) | ||
| SECTOR | ||||
| Textiles, wearing apparel, leather, and related products | 1.28 (0.86) | 1.24 (0.83) | ||
| Electronic products and electrical equipment | 1.30 (0.88) | 1.09 (0.74) | ||
| Metal products, machinery, and equipment | 2.35 (1.74) | 2.11 (1.58) | ||
| Wood and furniture | 1.82 (1.24) | 1.72 (1.17) | ||
| Manufacture of other nonmetallic mineral products | 2.27 (1.57) | 2.15 (1.59) | ||
| Paper and paper products | 0.84 (0.71) | 0.71 (0.61) | ||
| Rubber, plastics, and chemical products | 1.69 (1.26) | 1.61 (1.20) | ||
| Printing and related activities | 2.03 (1.39) | 1.77 (1.22) | ||
| Others | 1.04 (0.81) | 1.03 (0.80) | ||
| External factors | ||||
| NETWORK | 2.49*** (0.71) | |||
| INSTITUTION | 1.15*** (0.05) | |||
| Log likelihood | −508.61 | −498.31 | −480.28 | −472.29 |
| N | 976 | 976 | 976 | 976 |
- Note: Standard errors in brackets.
- *** p < 0.01
- ** p < 0.05
- * p < 0.1.
- Source: Author.
The results in Table 3 suggest that the personality traits can explain women entrepreneurial intentions as specified in Hypotheses 1, 2, and 3. The role of Openness, Conscientiousness, and Extraversion are found consistent across four models. Meanwhile, Hypotheses 4 and 5 are not supported by the results since the roles of Agreeableness and Neuroticism are found not statistically significant in explaining women's entrepreneurial intention. Openness and Extraversion are found to be positively associated with women entrepreneurs' intention to start up new projects and these findings are in line with the studies presented in the literature review section. For instance, as in model 4 of Table 3, the odds of those having new business intentions are predicted to increase by 1.19 times larger with each additional point of their openness to experience. The similar relation was also found with Extraversion as those with one point higher in this trait are predicted to increase their odds of planning to initiate new business projects by 1.18 times higher.
The relationship between Conscientiousness and women entrepreneurs' business intentions is found negative. For example, the odds of those reported intentions for new business projects are 0.78 times lower with each additional point of their conscientiousness. This finding suggests that women entrepreneurs with higher levels of conscientiousness are less likely to express their intentions to initiate a new business. It is possible to argue that those who are more conscientious run their current business better and thus do not have to explore a new business but results in Table 3 show that firm's ROA is not a statistically significant factor in explaining women entrepreneurs' new business intentions. Costa et al. (1991) show that people with higher conscientiousness scores are more cautious, and, by human nature, the level of caution is generally higher for women when exploring a new environment (Gagnon et al., 2016). Those with high level of conscientiousness are also claimed to be less flexible (LePine et al., 2000), and thus more hesitant and anxious when approaching new challenges (Roberts et al., 2018).
While their university background does not help to explain their business intentions, women entrepreneurs are found less likely to think of a new business project when they are older. The larger the firm size, the higher probability that women entrepreneurs plan to create new ventures, but the firm's age does not help to explain women owners' business intentions. External factors are found to positively correlate with women's entrepreneurial intentions: business network connections and the local institutional quality, and these findings are in line with related literature. The role of business network connections in encouraging entrepreneurial intentions is confirmed in the study by Brown et al. (2019) as entrepreneurs may acquire funding from these connections to start up their business. Other studies also confirm the important role of local institutional quality in promoting firms' investment since sound institutional quality may facilitate small firms' access to credit and create the local business environment attractive to entrepreneurs (Ganau & Rodríguez-Pose, 2022; Savio et al., 2020).
As robustness check, logistic regressions were conducted on the group of women entrepreneurs aged between 18 and 54 years (see Table A2). This age group corresponds to the statutory retirement age for women in Vietnam during the survey period which was 55 years. Reported values in Table A2 are odd ratios marked by p-values and standard errors in brackets. Findings from Table A2 are similar to those found in Table 3 regarding the magnitudes and statistical significance of the odd ratios. For instance, as in model 4 of Table A2, the odds of women entrepreneurs having new business intentions are predicted to increase by 1.18 times larger with each additional point of their openness to experience (this figure in Table 3 is 1.19). The odds of those planning to initiate new line of products are predicted to grow by 1.24 times higher with each additional point of their Extraversion (this figure in Table 3 is 1.18). Similar to the findings above, the odds of those reported new business intentions are 0.77 lower with each additional point of their conscientiousness (this figure in Table 3 is 0.78).
5 CONCLUDING DISCUSSION
The Big Five personality factors can be important for women's entrepreneurial intentions in Vietnam. As the findings of this study indicate, openness, extraversion, and conscientiousness are the most important of the five traits explaining women entrepreneurs' intention to start a new business project. The fact that conscientiousness is found negatively associated with women's entrepreneurial intention while the external factors are found positively promote their intention for new business projects implies policies that foster local institutions and business environments are essential. Women entrepreneurs with high level of conscientiousness may be more cautious, and thus more hesitant about starting up a new business, but the sound external environment may be a solution to reduce this constraint and stimulate their business intentions.
The finding that women entrepreneurs' university education background does not explain their business intentions raises the concern over the undergraduate training programs in Vietnam. It is essential to provide students with sound skills and knowledge which help them to be more confident in planning their business intentions in case entrepreneurship is their career choice. To foster the local business environment, the local authorities should keep improving the local institutional quality through many policies including facilitating the establishment and expansion of business associations to stimulate women entrepreneurs' business intentions.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research is funded by University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (UEH).
CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT
The author declares no conflict of interest.
ETHICS STATEMENT
Not applicable.
APPENDIX A
| Personality trait | Question wording |
|---|---|
For each of the following statements, indicate how well it applies to you on a scale of 1 to 7 where 1 means “does not apply to me at all” and 7 means “applies to me perfectly”. Code: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 I see myself as someone who: |
|
| Openness to experience | Is original, comes up with new ideas |
| Openness to experience | Values artistic experiences |
| Openness to experience | Has an active imagination |
| Conscientiousness | Does a thorough job |
| Conscientiousness | Does things effectively and efficiently |
| Conscientiousness (inverted) | Tends to be lazy |
| Extraversion | Is communicative, talkative |
| Extraversion | Is outgoing, sociable |
| Extraversion (inverted) | Is reserved |
| Agreeableness | Has a forgiving nature |
| Agreeableness | Is considerate and kind to others |
| Agreeableness (inverted) | Is sometimes somewhat rude to others |
| Neuroticism | Worries a lot |
| Neuroticism | Gets nervous easily |
| Neuroticism (inverted) | Is relaxed, handles stress well |
- Source: The 2015 VNSME.
| Business intention | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (1) | (2) | (3) | (4) | |
| Personality traits | ||||
| OPEN | 1.29*** (0.08) | 1.24*** (0.08) | 1.18** (0.08) | 1.18** (0.08) |
| CONS | 0.75*** (0.06) | 0.76*** (0.06) | 0.77*** (0.07) | 0.77*** (0.07) |
| EXTRA | 1.20** (0.10) | 1.22** (0.11) | 1.24** (0.11) | 1.24** (0.11) |
| AGREE | 0.98 (0.10) | 0.99 (0.11) | 1.00 (0.11) | 1.00 (0.11) |
| NEURO | 1.05 (0.10) | 1.05 (0.10) | 1.04 (0.10) | 1.05 (0.10) |
| Personal characteristics | ||||
| AGE | 0.96*** (0.01) | 0.97** (0.01) | 0.97** (0.01) | |
| UNIVERSITY | 1.28 (0.24) | 0.86 (0.19) | 0.84 (0.18) | |
| Firm characteristics | ||||
| FIRM AGE | 1.00 (0.01) | 1.00 (0.01) | ||
| FIRM SCALE (log) | 1.34*** (0.11) | 1.25*** (0.11) | ||
| ROA | 1.02 (0.06) | 1.05 (0.07) | ||
| SECTOR | ||||
| Textiles, wearing apparel, leather, and related products | 1.14 (0.77) | 1.10 (0.74) | ||
| Electronic products and electrical equipment | 1.33 (0.91) | 1.12 (0.77) | ||
| Metal products, machinery, and equipment | 1.97 (1.49) | 1.79 (1.36) | ||
| Wood and furniture | 1.97 (1.34) | 1.88 (1.29) | ||
| Manufacture of other nonmetallic mineral products | 2.19 (1.53) | 2.11 (1.48) | ||
| Paper and paper products | 0.96 (0.83) | 0.80 (0.69) | ||
| Rubber, plastics, and chemical products | 1.56 (1.18) | 1.52 (1.15) | ||
| Printing and related activities | 1.58 (1.10) | 1.40 (0.98) | ||
| Others | 1.08 (0.84) | 1.08 (0.85) | ||
| α | ||||
| NETWORK | 2.43*** (0.72) | |||
| INSTITUTION | 0.14*** (0.05) | |||
| Log likelihood | −450.00 | −439.77 | −426.41 | −419.62 |
| N | 851 | 851 | 851 | 851 |
- Note: Standard errors in brackets.
- *** p < 0.01
- ** p < 0.05
- * p < 0.1.
- Source: Author.
Source: Author.
Open Research
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
This study uses the data set that is published on the website of United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (https://www.wider.unu.edu/database/viet-nam-sme-database).
