VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY VIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY ---------o0o--------- LE THI PHUONG RISK ATTITUDES AND THE COMMON PERSONALITY TRAITS: A STUDY ON VIETNAMESE YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS. MASTER THESIS BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY VIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY ---------o0o--------- LE THI PHUONG RISK ATTITUDES AND THE COMMON PERSONALITY TRAITS: A STUDY ON VIETNAMESE YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS. MAJOR: BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION CODE: 8340101.01 RESEARCH SUPERVISORS: PROF. PEIJUN GUO DR.
YOSHIFUMI HINO Hanoi, 2021 ABSTRACT This study aims to investigate the common personality traits of young Vietnamese entrepreneurs and the relationship between these personality traits to their risk attitudes. The decisive factor for the success of a business is Entrepreneurs, the founders and making decisions about the growth strategy for the business. To do this, the author set Big-five personality traits, optimism and pessimism as the independent variable, risk attitude as the dependent variable, and then identified the relationships between them. The author uses quantitative methods on a sample of 167 young Vietnamese entrepreneurs.
We use structural equation modeling (SEM) method by SmartPLS3 software. Descriptive analysis and path analysis of the multivariate regression model support the validity of the proposed model. Findings in this study are the common personality traits and risk attitudes of young Vietnamese entrepreneurs. The analysis also shows that agreeableness has the greatest impact on risk attitudes of Vietnamese entrepreneurs, following that, the research shows the pessimism affects risk attitudes of Vietnamese entrepreneurs which the previous studies have not mentioned.
The results of the study are an important reference for policy researchers, investors and entrepreneurs in Vietnam. Keywords: Big - five, optimism, pessimism, risk attitudes, Vietnamese entrepreneurs, personality traits. ACKNOWLEDGMENT After two years of studying and researching at Vietnam Japan University, I am very pleased to write this thesis. My passion for business has led to my research on Vietnamese entrepreneurial traits.
Research covers not only academic aspects but also practical aspects with practical implications. The subjects and knowledge I gained through courses in Vietnam - Japan University and Yokohama National University played an essential role in supporting my research activities. So I would like to thank professors and doctors for teaching and imparting valuable knowledge to me. I hope that my research can contribute to studies of the personality traits of Vietnamese entrepreneurs.
First of all, I would like to thank my advisers, Professor Peijun Guo and Dr. Yoshifumi Hino, for their guidance and suggestions. My advisers gave me valuable advice on how I should conduct the research process. Without their patiently quick guidance, I would not have been able to complete this thesis.
Second, I also want to send my sincere thanks to the program assistant Ms. Huong, my classmates and all the people who have helped me with my research, and gave me the motivation during difficult times like reviewing surveys or collecting surveys so I can step by step and be able to complete the research paper. Last but not least, I would like to thank my family, who care about me both mentally and physically so that I can focus as best as possible to complete this thesis. TABLE OF CONTENT Contents ABSTRACT ACKNOWLEDGMENT TABLE OF CONTENT LIST OF TABLE.
i LIST OF FIGURES. ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. iii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.1 Background of research.4 Scope of the research .5 Significance of the research. 6 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW.1 Risk management in business .3 Big five personality traits .4 Optimism and Pessimism .5 The personality traits and risk attitude .3 Data collection instruments .3 Common method bias test .5 Structural model assessment.
41 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION .3 Limitations and future research recommendation. 53 LIST OF TABLE Table 3. 2: Descriptive analysis 30 Table 4. 3: Skewness and Kurtosis test 31 Table 4.
4: Common method bias 33 Table 4. 5: Reliability test 35 Table 4. 6: Composite reliability and average variance extracted. 7: Cross loadings 37 Table 4.
8: Fornell-Larker criterion 38 Table 4. 9: Heterotrait-Monotrait Ratio of Correlations (HTMT). 11: Results of path significance. 42 i LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.
1: Research Process 22 Figure 4. 1: Results of PLS-SEM Model 41 Figure 4. 2: Path coefficient after hypothesis test. 43 ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS VCCI Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry DOSPERT Domain-specific risk attitudes ELOT Extended Life Orientation Test PLS-SEM Partial least Squares – Structure Equation Modeling CEO Chief Executive Officer O Openness C Conscientiousness E Extroversion A Agreeableness N Neuroticism OP Optimism PE Pessimism R Risk attitude KMO Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin CR Composite reliability AVE Average variance extracted HTMT Heterotrait-Monotrait Ratio Correlations iii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of research The businesses and founders behind these businesses are in vogue everywhere across Vietnam.
The Vietnamese government is also experimenting with new ways to promote the formation of new companies. The rise of entrepreneurship in Vietnam started strongly since 2016, the year of “Vietnamese National Start-up”. It is an important socio- economic development stage in Vietnam and the interest in entrepreneurship has never been. According to a report by the Ministry of Planning and Investment, in the period 2016 - 2019, the number of Vietnamese enterprises increased by 10.5%, on average, more than 100,000 new enterprises were established each year, twice as high as in the 2011- 2015 period.
Thus, by the end of 2020, there were about 810 thousand enterprises and about 7 million business households operating in the whole country, of which small and medium enterprises account for 97%. In recent years, the Government has continuously implemented solutions to improve the investment and business environment, complete the legal framework to innovate and create motivation for enterprises to develop. Prominent as of 2020, Vietnam has signed 3 Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) signed with the European Union (EVFTA), ASEAN region and 5 countries (RCEP) and an agreement with the United Kingdom (UKVFTA) in 2020. These FTAs have created good conditions for businesses in Vietnam to promote their strengths in production and business capacity as well as access the global market.
However, Vietnam is among the 20 countries with the lowest ability to implement business plans. Survey results of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) given at the end of 2019 at the seminar "Completing the startup support policy", Vietnam has less than 10% of successful startups. Although entrepreneurship in Vietnam is high, due to market instability, complexity of capital management and time, the risk is very high and many young entrepreneurs in Vietnam have yet to confirm the importance of business risk management. Entrepreneurs are decision makers, with a responsibility to understand risk management, it is important to identify and assess risks properly.
Their decisions will affect the formation, development and existence of the business. However, individuals are 1 often unique and different from others. In particular, personality is one of the characteristics that distinguish a person's behavior or perception. This does not exclude the risk of being influenced by individual perceptions.
In other words, personality traits can predict risk attitudes of decision makers (Beyer et al. Risk attitude is an individual's chosen state of mind that can have a potential positive or negative outcome on a decision (Hillson and Murray-Webster, 2005). The term risk attitude is closely related to or influenced by an individual's perception of risk, in relation to whether they view risk as a form of opportunity or a threat. The risk attitude also represents an individual's perception of uncertainty.
These categories are categorized into areas, such as ethics, finance, health or safety, leisure and social (Weber et al, 2002). Beside that the Big-five model is a multidimensional approach to identify the characteristics by measuring openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. This model has been the dominant model for personality traits since the 1980s, Big-five was also found to influence career choice and job performance (e., John et al. In the previous study related to personality traits and Risk Attitudes of Construction Industry Managers in Malaysia of Lee & Foo, (2020) mentioned five personality traits as Big-five and proved that there are relationships between these personality traits and risk attitudes.
Optimism and pessimism - expect a positive or negative future. A person can be optimistic about a particular area of life (e., expecting his marriage/relationship to be successful) but pessimistic about other aspects (e. expecting difficulties of finance in future). Successful living requires a good balance between optimism and pessimism.
Excessive optimism can encourage a person to take uncalculated financial risks that will result in disaster. On the other hand, worrying too much about potential dangers and focusing one's energy on what could go wrong leads to avoidant or passive behavior (Hecht, 2013). Like all other human experiences, the basic mental attitudes of optimism and pessimism are closely linked to distinct physiological processes. The combination of optimism and pessimism is reflected in people's thoughts, feelings, decisions, and 2 behaviors.
Therefore, optimism and pessimism are two important factors when studying the relationship between personality traits and risk attitudes. National culture can support or suppress corporate behavior at the individual level (Hayton et al., 2002) from this perspective it can be seen in different countries with different cultures supporting entrepreneurship. Each country has a different economic, social and cultural situation, from which the personality characteristics of business people in each country are also different. Therefore, when learning about the personality traits of Vietnamese entrepreneurs, we must use research conducted in Vietnam.
This article will be the beginning of a formal study on personality characteristics and risk attitudes of Vietnamese businessmen. From the above arguments, the author combines five Big-five personality traits with optimism and pessimism to demonstrate whether categorizing risk attitudes based on individual personality traits is effective. This study aimed to investigate whether personality traits contain any form of influence on risk attitudes of young Vietnamese entrepreneurs. Entries from the Big Five Inventory (BFI), Extended Life Orientation Test (ELOT) and Domain Risk-Attitude (DOSPERT) were used to study the correlation between the two variables as well as to determine the risk-acceptance attitude of Young Vietnamese businessman.
Therefore, the objectives of this study were (1) to characterize the general personality of young Vietnamese entrepreneurs, (2) to measure the relationship between their personality traits and risk attitudes. Then contribute finding to the policy makers, investors and final advisors.2 Problem statement Personality traits are considered well-suited to optimizing organizational performance as they have been found to predict creativity and generate out-of-the-box ideas when an 'optimal' balance of personality traits (Buchanan, 1998). The concept of risk attitudes (risk-seeking, risk-neutral/accepting, and risk-averse), when translated into a business context, can imply that a risk averse assessor may be willing to forgo the benefits a deal can provide to avoid the uncertainty of economic losses. Research Weber et al., 3 (2002) also shows that an individual's perception of the level of risk in a situation can be a lever for shifting risk attitudes from aversion to seeking; Therefore, identifying personality traits, can be of great value in understanding the decisions of individuals or groups in risky situations.
However, there is no research to formally investigate personality traits, risk attitudes and the relationship between personality traits and risk attitudes in Vietnam. This study aims to help learn about the personality characteristics of young Vietnamese entrepreneurs by conducting a behavioral psychology investigation of young Vietnamese entrepreneurs. In a more common sense, it will help to find out whether the personality traits of entrepreneurs studied around the world are important in explaining the behavior of young Vietnamese entrepreneurs. Based on Yoo and Lee's (2020) model of the relationship between big-five personality traits and risky attitudes, the theoretical contribution of this study is to add two personality traits that are optimism and pessimism to the current model to investigate personality traits and determine the relationship between these characteristics and risk attitudes of young Vietnamese entrepreneurs.
The practical contribution of this study is that the research results show the general personality traits of young Vietnamese entrepreneurs. Determine the impact of the feature on the risk profile.