The International Journal of Management Education 20 (2022) 100553

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The International Journal of Management Education

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijme

Investigating the relationship between educational support and

entrepreneurial intention in Vietnam: The mediating role of
entrepreneurial self-efficacy in the theory of planned behavior
Greeni Maheshwari a, *, Khanh Linh Kha b
a
Economics and Finance Department, RMIT University, Saigon South Campus, Viet Nam
b
RMIT University, Saigon South Campus, Vietnam

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The purpose of the study is to investigate the mediating role of entrepreneurial self-efficacy and
Entrepreneurial educational support the components of theory of planned behaviour (TPB) model (personal attitude, subjective norm,
Entrepreneurial intentions perceived behavioural control) in the relationship between entrepreneurial educational support
Personal attitude
and entrepreneurial intentions of the university students in Vietnam. The participants of the study
Subjective norm
Perceived behavioural control
include 401 university students (undergraduate and post-graduate) from universities in Vietnam.
Entrepreneurial self-efficacy Confirmatory Factor Analysis and structural equation model is used for testing the hypotheses of
Vietnam this study. The results from the analysis suggest that the entrepreneurship educational support
does not impact the entrepreneurial intentions directly, but has an indirect positive effect
mediated by three components of TPB and entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Many studies conducted
in the past tested the mediating effect of educational support on TPB component but none of the
study determined the serial mediating effect of two variables of educational support on ES. Hence,
this study is one of the first attempt to find this serial mediating effect. This study recommends
that even though the entrepreneurial education does not have a direct impact on entrepreneurial
intentions, but educational support does have a significant positive effect on TPB components and
self-efficacy, which has a further effect on entrepreneurial intentions and hence it is important for
the universities to develop courses which can help in developing the skills for starting new
ventures through the education system in Vietnam which will further help in fostering creativity,
self-dependence and innovation. The study results will be useful to fulfill government’s aim to
increase the number of start-ups in Vietnam in future.

1. Introduction

Entrepreneurship is grabbing the attention of the scholars and the policymakers in recent time as it plays a vital role in the eco­
nomic development of the country by bringing innovation to the market and creating jobs (Shane & Venkataraman, 2000). However,
despite extensive research for decades, there are varying factors in different countries which affects the entrepreneurial intentions.
Entrepreneurial intention is defined as the planned behaviour of starting a business (Adam & Fayolle, 2015). Although, the start-up
intention of students might not transfer into actual behavior after they graduate but understanding the formation of entrepre­
neurial intentions is the first step towards entrepreneurial process and this first step can be achieved by understanding the EI of

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: greeni.maheshwari@rmit.edu.vn (G. Maheshwari).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijme.2021.100553
Received 28 April 2021; Received in revised form 24 August 2021; Accepted 24 August 2021
Available online 20 September 2021
1472-8117/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
G. Maheshwari and K.L. Kha The International Journal of Management Education 20 (2022) 100553

students when they are studying. Theory of planned behaviour (TPB) developed by Ajzen (1991) has become the most used model to
explain and predict the behaviour of an individual and TPB is extensively used in the entrepreneurship area as well to predict the
intentions and behaviour of the people. According to the original model developed by Ajzen (1991), TPB consists of three independent
constructs (personal attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control) which explain the behaviour of an individual and
this relationship is mediated by the intentions. Many scholars in their studies to determine the entrepreneurial intentions have either
used the original model as developed by Ajzen (1991) or have modified the variable by adding more constructs to the original model.
Entrepreneurship education is considered an important factor contributing towards entrepreneurship activities and intentions.
There are contradicting results from various studies on the relationship between entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial in­
tentions. Although many studies found the positive direct relationship of entrepreneurial educational support (ES) on entrepreneurial
intentions (EI), while there are some studies that also found no insignificant effect of ES on EI. Recent studies (Nguyen & Choo, 2020;
Nguyen et al., 2019) found that there is an indirect effect of ES on EI. However, in the literature, it remains unclear as to how the
relationship of ES on EI is mediated by personal attitude (PA), perceived behavioural control (PBC) which is further mediated by
entrepreneur self-efficacy (ESE).
The national program to support start-ups in Vietnam was started in the year 2016 with an aim to support 1000 startups by 2020.
Despite the support provided by the government, there was slower progress than expected (Vietnam Insider, 2020). The government is
trying its best to provide a better entrepreneur environment by reducing the barriers to set up the businesses. As per the latest available
Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report of the year 2017, the percentage of business awareness opportunities had reduced to
46.4% in 2017 as compared to the previous year 2015 (56.8%) (GEM, 2017). Also, the ranking of Vietnam dropped to 23 (out of 54
economies) in 2017 as compared to rank 9th (out of 60 economies) in 2015 (GEM, 2017). The percentage of perception about
entrepreneurship intentions was also found to be lower in 2017 (53%) as compared to 56.8% in 2015, although the entrepreneurial
intentions were constantly increasing from 18.2% in 2014 to 22.3% in 2015 and 25% in 2017 (GEM, 2017). Hence, it is important to
investigate that despite the government establishing the funds, providing the support in terms of reducing the barriers, what might be
the other factors that influences the entrepreneurship intentions and how the government and educational institutions can provide
further support towards start-ups.
While studies of entrepreneurship have been carried out worldwide, especially in Western countries where there are developed
market economies and entrepreneurial ecosystems, Vietnam still has limited studies on entrepreneurial intentions of undergraduate
and post-graduate students, which has been conducted recently in the last two years (Table A1 on studies in Vietnam). Most of the
papers are based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to analyze the effect of antecedents of entrepreneurial intentions associating
with the entrepreneurial intentions of Vietnamese youths, including factors that are related to motivation and cognitive conditions
(Maheshwari, 2021), country policies or government (Nguyen, 2017), and others that take into consideration the work values, op­
portunities and barriers (Nguyen, 2020). The results of those studies have supported that the TPB can be implemented within the
Vietnamese transitional economics context (Doanh & Bernat, 2019; Nguyen, 2020; Nguyen et al., 2019). There are some studies
conducted to analyze the impact of education on students’ entrepreneurial intentions, namely Nguyen (2020); Hoang et al. (2020).
There were very few studies conducted in Vietnam earlier and most of the studies are very recent for the last three years and especially
this topic has captured attention in years 2019 and 2020 as per the summary provided in Table A1 in an appendix. Most of the studies
conducted in Vietnam and around the world aim to find the direct effect of educational support, TPB components, or personality traits
on entrepreneurial intentions (EI) and as there is a plethora of studies in this direction, thus this study did not aim to find already
existing findings of the direct effect of TPB components on EI but rather focused on identifying the direct effect of educational support
(as this variable was found to be insignificant by many studies in Vietnam) and indirect effect of educational support mediated by TPB
components and entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) on EI. None of the studies grasped the serial mediating effect of ES on EI via PA, SN,
PBC, and entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE). As per Zhao et al. (2005) individuals with higher ESE levels would choose to become an
entrepreneur and hence ESE might play an important role in mediating the TPB components to impact EI. Hence, the purpose of this
study is to fill this gap by determining if there is a direct effect of ES on EI and further whether ES is mediated by PA, SN, PBC, and ESE
to explain the indirect effect on EI.
The study of Paul and Shrivatava (2016) found that despite lower levels of entrepreneurship, young managers in developing nations
did not always have stronger entrepreneurial intentions as compared to those in developed countries, which indicates that entre­
preneurial skills and knowledge in less developed countries should be broadened. There is an assumption that intention is impacted by
motivational factors which determine the behavior of an individual (Maheshwari, 2021). According to Ajzen (1991), the greater the
intention, the more likely it is that a behavior will be exercised towards entrepreneurship and it has been agreed by various studies that
entrepreneurship is a result of planned behavior. Thus, the intention to commence a start-up business is crucial to define entrepre­
neurial behavior, particularly for students who are in the process of shaping their career (Doan et al., 2021). The students in Vietnam
have a passion for entrepreneurship and a desire to start a business, but they do not know how to proceed or have sufficient skills and
capacity to kick off (Doan et al., 2021). One of the reasons is that there are not many educational institutions having entrepreneurship
programs or pragmatic courses in Vietnam to help students initiate business ideas (Khuong & An, 2016). Therefore, it is essential to
understand the determinants of entrepreneurial intentions to seek solutions with the aim of fulfilling the gap between students’ as­
pirations and their actual behaviors in Vietnam.
Further, this article is structured as follows. First, we formulate the theoretical framework of the study stating the hypotheses based
on the review of existing literature on ES, PA, SN, PBC, ESE, and EI. The next section focuses on the research methodology used for this
study. After that, the results are presented in the subsequent section. Following the results section, the discussion is presented which
also covers the contribution of this study. The study concludes with the last section on conclusion, implications, and limitations.

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2. Theoretical framework and hypotheses development

The study of Nguyen et al. (2019) stated that medium-level entrepreneurial intentions were found among students in Vietnam, and
it was critical to advance the start-up intentions to meet the goal of the Government. The theoretical framework of this study has been
designed by adopting the TPB model, the theory which studies the relationships between antecedents of entrepreneurial intentions.
This study has used all three components from the TPB model (PA, SN, PBC) as an antecedent of entrepreneurial intentions. Further,
this study also included few other components such as ES (Keat, Salvarajah & Meyer, 2011; Remeikiene et al., 2013; Roxas, 2014;
Turker & Selcuk, 2009) and ESE, as there are various studies which argued that entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial
self-efficacy (Lim et al., 2012; Piperopoulos & Dimov, 2015; Wilson et al., 2007) should also be included in the model to examine the
entrepreneurial intentions.

2.1. Influence of entrepreneur educational support (ES) on Entrepreneurial Intentions (EI)

Entrepreneurial educational support relates to providing the students with the knowledge and skills required to support start-ups
and entrepreneurial success in the future. Educational activities aim to encourage students’ entrepreneurial intentions by motivating
them to develop their desirability towards entrepreneurial activities (Liñán, 2004). Entrepreneurial Intentions refers to personal
orientation to start own-business or become self-employed. EI is about the individuals’ willingness to initiate new ventures and plans to
accomplish this in the future (Ridha & Wahyu, 2017).
The research of Liu et al. (2019) indicated that there was a positive relationship between ES and EI of students in China; however,
no clear impact on entrepreneurial attitude was found in the study. Oyugi (2015) proved that ES and EI of students in Uganda existed a
significant correlation, with self-efficacy mediated the relationship. According to the study of Chen et al. (2013), despite great
satisfaction and improved learning efficacy towards entrepreneurship education programs, Taiwanese students’ entrepreneurial in­
tentions demonstrated an insignificant decrease, which was due to the fact that the students realized that it was challenging to start the
business. However, this indicates that although entrepreneurship education has a negative relationship with the entrepreneurial in­
tentions of students, it is crucial to develop their entrepreneurship spirit and enhance the attitude of the future career orientation.
In Vietnam, there have been many entrepreneurship training programs and competitions established for students in universities
currently, which helps to enhance the passion of students towards entrepreneurship and their confidence in individual competence,
strongly contributing to the improvement of students’ entrepreneurial intentions in the country (Doan et al., 2021). However, the
positive correlation between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intention can be influenced by the time and team
cooperation factor. The study of Doanh and Bernat (2019) demonstrated that entrepreneurship education would have a stronger
impact on the entrepreneurial intention if there was an intention to startup in the future or an individual was motivated by the
passionate and enthusiastic spirit of other team members, and converse was also proven true in this research.
Vietnamese universities have had many forms of entrepreneurial activities. Apart from cooperating with external businesses, in­
stitutions in Vietnam have supported startups by establishing enterprises, which helps improve educational activities, technology, and
patents transferring, funding, and tightening correlation with industry. The approaches were employed by several notable universities,
namely Hanoi University of Pharmacy, Hanoi University of Science and Technology, and Vietnam National University in Hanoi (Dinh,
2017). In the study of Dinh et al. (2016), Vietnam National University Hanoi invested on designing the activities to promote entre­
preneurship knowledge. Specifically, the university established three enterprises to improve technology research and help students
engage with practical entrepreneurial activities, including branding for the company, or innovating new products and new services.
These schemes yielded positive outcomes on not only encouraging knowledge transfer of students and academic staff but also
consolidating the relationship between the university and other stakeholders. Another principal approach to support entrepreneurial
intentions is forming technology business incubators that function as a bridge between universities, institutions, government and
businesses. Similar to university startups, the purpose of these incubators is to foster innovative and creative ideas, transfer technology,
and support entrepreneurs with any difficulties they face at an early stage. Until 2016, Vietnam had 12 incubators operating in both
Northern and Southern areas, five of which were incubators of top universities in the country (Dinh, 2017).
The positive correlation between higher education and entrepreneurial intentions of students was also supported in the paper of
Refaat (2009), with the investigation of higher education differences found in the entrepreneurial intention while no difference was
found in other factors such as self-efficacy and perceived behavioural control. ES is considered as the most controversial construct to
measure EI because of inconsistency in the empirical findings of various studies and hence keeping this in consideration, the following
hypothesis has been formulated:
H1. Educational support positively affects the entrepreneurial intentions.

2.2. Influence of entrepreneurial Educational Support (ES) on Personal Attitude (PA), Subjective Norm (SN) and Perceived Behavioural
Control (PBC)

Personal attitude is defined as an individual’s positive or negative evaluation of being an entrepreneur (Liñán & Chen, 2009).
Subjective norm comprises of the expectations from social groups such as parents, family and friends regarding an individuals’
entrepreneurship behaviours (Kautonen et al., 2015) Perceived behavioural control is defined by Ajzen (2002) as the “person’s
perception of ease or difficulty of performing the behaviour of interest”. In other words, PBC relates to of individual’s ability to deal
with situations.

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The study conducted by Boldureanu et al. (2013) in Romania found that ES can play a vital role in building students’ positive or
negative attitude. Research by Bae et al. (2014) suggests that ES has a direct impact on entrepreneurial attitude and skills. However,
the research conducted by Bazan et al. (2019) did not support this similar result and found that the environment and support of a
Canadian university did not significantly affect the students’ personal attitude. According to Karimi et al. (2012), the students who
have been supported with entrepreneurship education in universities had higher PA, SN and PBC. Refaat (2009) noted that proper
entrepreneurial education and training develops the students’ creativity, independence, attitudes and risk-taking capabilities. It was
found by Basu and Virick (2008) that perceived behavioral control could be enhanced by the early involvement in entrepreneurship
education, also confirming the result of Nguyen et al. (2019). The study of Bazan et al. (2019) also indicated that the support system of
a university in Canada did have a considerable impact on perceived behavioural control of students. The study of Nguyen (2020)
investigated the positive significant relationship between the educational environment and perceived behavioural control. However,
Refaat (2009); Basu and Virick (2008) proposed that there were significant education differences in entrepreneurial intentions, but
none in perceived behavioural control and self-efficacy. The above discussion has enabled to set up the following hypotheses of this
study:
H2a. ES is positively related to PA.
H2b. ES is positively related to SN.
H2c. ES is positively related to PBC.

2.3. Effect of Entrepreneurial Education Support (ES), Personal Attitude (PA), Entrepreneurial Self-efficacy (ESE) on Entrepreneurial
Intentions (EI)

Although few studies like Liñán and Chen (2009) assume that ESE and PBC are similar constructs due to their nature of similarity,
but this study assumes ESE and PBC as separate constructs due to the distinction based on the notion of internal and external control
factors. This argument and distinction of ESE and PBC have been developed by Terry (1993); Terry and O’Leary (1995); White et al.
(1994) who argue that PBC refers to the external constraints on behaviour while self-efficacy relates to internal control factors. This
argument was further supported by Armitage and Conner (2001) and Tsai et al. (2016) who defined ESE as the confidence of people to
engage with entrepreneurial activities while PBC is about how an individual perceives performing a particular behaviour as easy or
difficult. Self-efficacy pertains to individuals’ self-belief in their abilities and skills to perform a particular task (Bandura, 1986). The
people with low self-efficacy avoid the tasks where they are not confident about and in contrast, the people perform better in their tasks
if they believe that they have a high level of self-efficacy. While entrepreneurial self-efficacy is defined as the extent to which the
person is confident about their ability to complete the tasks and projects based on their entrepreneurship skills (Boyd & Vozikis, 1994).
The study of Maheshwari (2021) indicated that positive attitudes of students played the most important role in impacting their
entrepreneurial intentions because students would feel more secure starting a new business with the high perceived value of entre­
preneurial attitudes. Meanwhile, negative attitudes would adversely affect the intentions towards entrepreneurship of students. Other
studies confirmed the strong connectivity of these two variables, namely Doanh and Bernat (2019); Nguyen et al. (2019). With control
variables of age, gender and grade, Liu et al. (2019) found the correlation between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial
intentions of students in China was not significant, which might be because a psychological transformation mechanism was still
required by students to incorporate the skills, knowledge, and experiences gained from the courses into their personal attitudes; and
such attitudes were affected by affections and entrepreneurship cognition, which means the effect of self-efficacy should be taken into
consideration when evaluating the relationship between those variables.
As Liu et al. (2019) demonstrated the insignificant relationship between education and entrepreneurship attitude, the prerequisite
to analyze the mediating role of personal attitude was not satisfied, thus the entrepreneurship attitude variable failing to play a role as
a mediator in evaluating the correlation between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intentions of students. The study of
Zhao et al. (2005) proved that self-efficacy played a vital role as a mediator in the positive relationship between educational support
and intentions towards entrepreneurship as with education, students could have their knowledge and confidence level developed,
leading to the increase in self-efficacy and a positive impact on entrepreneurial intentions (Krueger & Brazeal, 1994).
Following the empirical evidence found in an international context, Hoang et al. (2020) investigated the strong impact of
self-efficacy as a mediator between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intentions of Vietnamese students. As a result, the
study suggested that entrepreneurship courses should be included in higher education programs to increase students’ intentions; and
could be developed further to inspire students with entrepreneurial careers and enhance their intrinsic motivation. Based on the above
argumentation, the following hypotheses are formulated in the study:
H3a. PA is positively related to ESE.
H3b. PA mediates the relationship between ES and ESE.
H3c. PA and ESE mediate the relationship between ES and EI.

2.4. Relationship of Entrepreneurial Education Support (ES), Subjective Norms (SN), Entrepreneurial Self-efficacy (ESE) on
Entrepreneurial Intentions (EI)

The review by Uy et al. (2015) highlighted that the personality and the confidence of young entrepreneurs is influenced by ES. Adu

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et al. (2020) demonstrated that self-efficacy plays a mediating role between ES and EI. The research of Nguyen et al. (2019) indicates
that the young people in Vietnam have become more independent in determining their career path and running a business by
themselves compared to the past, thanks to more support and activities provided by the Government and entrepreneurship organi­
zations. Educational support has been found as a significant factor having a positive impact on students’ independence (Refaat, 2009).
Doanh and Bernat (2019) investigated that the subjective norm factor did not directly influence the intention of students towards
entrepreneurship but had a significant indirect impact on the intentions. Indeed, the content quality and information usefulness gained
from the courses has been expected to strongly affect the learning perceptions of students, thus providing them with the opportunity to
evaluate their entrepreneurship ability (Zhao et al., 2005). The study of Nguyen (2017) and Nguyen et al. (2019) also did not support
the positive correlation between subjective norm and the entrepreneurial intention. Based on the above, the following hypotheses are
postulated for this study:
H4a. SN is positively related to ESE.
H4b. SN mediates the relationship between ES and ESE.
H4c. SN and ESE mediate the relationship between ES and EI.

2.5. Relationship of Entrepreneurial Education Support (ES), Perceived Behavioural Control (PBC), Entrepreneurial Self-efficacy (ESE) on
Entrepreneurial Intentions (EI)

Nguyen et al. (2019) studied the impact of perceived behavioural control on the entrepreneurial intentions of Vietnamese youths.
In specific, youngsters would feel more confident in presenting their abilities if they had exposure to previous entrepreneurship ex­
periences. Moreover, perceived behavioural control was proven to be the most significant element in determining the students’ in­
tentions towards entrepreneurship, especially in developing countries (Nguyen, 2020). The study of Nguyen (2020) investigated the
mediator impact of perceived behavioural control on entrepreneurial intention to examine the relationship between entrepreneurial
environment barriers, finance access, university environment, and the intentions of students. Specifically, the three determinants were
crucial to elevate the perceived behavioral control and entrepreneurial intentions of Vietnamese youngsters. To the best of our
knowledge, none of the studies has explored the mediating role of PBC between ES and EI. This will be the first kind of study to
investigate this mediating effect of PBC on EI. Based on these considerations, the following hypotheses have been put forward in this
study:
H5a. PBC is positively related to ESE.
H5b. PBC mediates the relationship between ES and ESE.
H5c. PBC and ESE mediates the relationship between ES and EI.

2.6. Relationship of Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy (ESE) on Entrepreneurial Intentions (EI)

Zhao et al. (2005) explored that most people decided on an entrepreneurship career because their entrepreneurial self-efficacy
levels were significant, which means individuals would choose to become an entrepreneur if they perceived the success in the
future. The study of Liu et al. (2019) also indicated the significant relationship between self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intentions of
students in China considering control variables of age, gender, and grade, confirming that self-efficacy could increase the confidence
level of college students and thus increase their entrepreneurial intentions.
Various studies found the positive effect of self-efficacy on the entrepreneurial intentions of students in Vietnam, including Hoang
et al. (2020). It is also proven that the correlation between self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intention was mediated by perceived
behavioural control and entrepreneurship attitudes of students in the study of Doanh and Bernat (2019). The internal barriers related
to personal traits such as lack of self-efficacy, lack of confidence, and fear of failure would refrain an individual to become an
entrepreneur in the Vietnamese transitional economy. Based on the evidence found from the literature, the following hypothesis of this
study is designed:
H6. ESE positively affects the EI.
In the study of Brockhaus (1980), an individual’s entrepreneurial intention would be impacted by age, gender, and education level
which have been commonly used as control variables by some of the research papers (Liu et al., 2019). Some other studies on
entrepreneurial intentions included control variables as age, gender, and past experiences (Iakovleva et al., 2011); gender, grade and
type of universities (Cao & Ngo, 2019); or gender, major, and university type (Zhang et al., 2014) that influenced significantly on the
intentions towards entrepreneurship of students. Based on the various findings from the literature on control variables, this study also
tested the relationship with age, gender, and major on EI of the students.

2.7. Research model

Fig. 1 summarises the proposed hypotheses and the research model for this study. The model represents the theoretical framework
of this study wherein motivational antecedents (PA, SN and PBC) act as a mediator between ES and ESE. Further, the motivational
antecedents and ESE shows a mediating relationship between ES and EI in the framework.

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3. Research methodology

3.1. Sample of the study and data collection

The non-probability convenience sampling method is used in this study to collect the data. Due to the challenging nature of
entrepreneurial discipline, the use of non-probability sampling techniques has been reported by many studies despite the generaliz­
ability issue (Jensen & Luthans, 2006; Nowiński et al., 2019; Thompson, 2009; Wilson et al., 2007). Having said that, the efforts have
been taken in this study to reduce the generalizability issues by using the homogenous convenience sampling method. This study is
based in Vietnam with the data collected from university students who are enrolled in undergraduate or post-graduate using
non-probability homogenous convenience sampling as opposed to conventional convenience sampling. The homogenous convenience
sampling has key advantage over conventional convenience as it helps in higher confidence in study results with respect to clearer
generalizability of the results (Jager et al., 2017). The conventional sampling is not constrained and specific to the group, while
homogeneous sampling is constrained with respect to sociodemographic background (Jager et al., 2017). This study constrained the
group of students enrolled in under graduation or post-graduation programs in public and private universities. Also, it was ensured to
collect the data from two biggest cities of Vietnam; Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi to reduce generalizability issues. The data for this
study was collected by distributing online survey to university students in Vietnam from October 2020 till April 2021. The initial
responses received were from 448 participants but the responses with missing information were deleted. The final data of the study
included 401 participants after the data cleaning process. Descriptive measures of the participants are presented in Table 1.
The participants in the sample included 76% female and rest all the participants were male. 84% of students were enrolled in an
undergraduate program with 70% were studying in public universities. The students with a business degree major were 52%. There
were 26% of the participants who mentioned that their family had their own business and also 60% of the participants had friends who
were an entrepreneur.

3.2. Measures of dependent, independent and control variables

The research instrument for this study was majorly adapted from the Entrepreneurial Intention Questionnaire (EIQ) developed by
(Linan, Urbano & Guerrero, 2011; Linan & Chen, 2009) which measures EI and its antecedents. The other constructs of this study were
adapted from Denanyo et al., 2015 (ES), Zhao et al., 2005 (ESE)). The full items of all the constructs of this study can be seen in Table 2.
The questionnaire consisted of 7-point Likert-scale (1 indicating extremely disagree to 7 as extremely agree) having five sub-sections to
measure the entrepreneurial activities regarding questions on ES, PA, SN, PBC, ESE and EI. The dependent variable was EI consisted of
six items with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.909.
The first independent variable, ES consisted of three items and Cronbach’s alpha for this variable was 0.829. The next independent
variable of the study was PA which was made up of five items with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.839. Then, SN was measured using three
items having a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.810. The next independent variable used was PBC which contained six items with a Cronbach’s
alpha of 0.849. The last independent variable was denoted by ESE and was made up of four items with a value of 0.862 for Cronbach’s
alpha.
Rest of the questions in the questionnaire were included as control variables on demographic and socio-economic characteristics
which are considered as typical variables affecting entrepreneurship (Langowitz & Minniti, 2007). The control variables were related
to age (in years), gender (Female = 1; Male = 0), Level of study (Undergraduate = 1; Post-graduate = 0), University type (Public = 1;
Private = 0), major (Business = 1; Non-Business = 0), Ever had family entrepreneur (Yes = 1; No = 0), Ever had friend entrepreneur

Fig. 1. Proposed research model.

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Table 1
Descriptive measures.
Descriptive Statistics (N = 401) Mean SD

Age (years) 21.79 4.453

Gender: Female = 1; Male = 0 0.76 0.476
Study Level: Undergraduate = 1; Post-graduate = 0 0.84 0.369
University type: Public = 1; Private = 0 0.70 0.460
Major; Business = 1; Non-Business = 0 0.52 0.50
Ever had Family Entrepreneur: Yes = 1; No = 0 0.26 0.439
Ever had Friend Entrepreneur: Yes = 1; No = 0 0.60 0.491

SD - Standard Deviation.

Table 2
Factor loadings, Cronbach’s alpha, CR and AVE for variables.
Construct with items and source Factor loading CA CR AVE

Entrepreneurial Educational Support (EES) (Denanyo et al., 2015) 0.829 0.883 0.716
EES1: The education in my university encourages me to develop creative ideas for being an entrepreneur 0.779
EES2: My university provides the necessary knowledge about entrepreneurship 0.882
EES3: My university develops my entrepreneurial skills and abilities 0.875

Personal Attitude (PA) (González-López et al., 2019) 0.839 0.839 0.512

PA1: Being an entrepreneur would give me great satisfaction 0.682
PA2: A career as an entrepreneur is attractive for me 0.754
PA3: Among various options, I would rather be an entrepreneur 0.803
PA4: Being an entrepreneur implies more advantages than disadvantages to me 0.613
PA5: If I had the opportunity and resources, I would like to start a business 0.715

Social Norm (SN) (Liñán & Chen, 2009) 0.810 0.848 0.650
SN1: If I decided to be an entrepreneur, my family members support me 0.793
SN2: If I decided to be an entrepreneur, my friends support me 0.841
SN3: If I decided to be an entrepreneur, my close network (from work, school, and neighborhood) support me 0.784

Perceived Behavioral Control (PBC) (Liñán & Chen, 2009) 0.849 0.858 0.502
PBC1: To start a business and keep it working would be easy for me 0.695
PBC2: I am prepared to start a viable business 0.696
PBC3: I am able to control the creation process of a new business 0.766
PBC4: I know the necessary practical details needed to start a business 0.756
PBC5: If I tried to start a firm, I would have a high probability of succeeding 0.655
PBC6: I know how to develop an entrepreneurial project 0.676

Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy (ESE) (Zhao et al., 2005) 0.862 0.860 0.507

ESE1: I am confident in successfully identifying new business opportunities 0.640
ESE2: I am confident in successfully creating new products 0.761
ESE3: I am confident in thinking creatively 0.778
ESE4: I am confident in successfully commercializing an idea or new development 0.785

Entrepreneurial Intentions (EI) (González-López et al., 2019; Liñán & Chen, 2009) 0.909 0.83 0.552
EI1: I will make every effort to start and run my own business 0.575
EI2: I am determined to create a business venture in the future 0.752
EI3: I have very seriously thought of starting a firm 0.728
EI4: I am ready to do anything to be an entrepreneur 0.779
EI5: My professional goal is to be an entrepreneur 0.727
EI6: I have the firm intention to start a firm some day 0.695

CA - Cronbach’s alpha (α); CR – Composite reliability; AVE - Average variance extracted.

(Yes = 1; No = 0). The descriptive measures of these control variables are presented in Table 1.

3.3. Data analysis

3.3.1. Model fitness

Normality of data was tested using skewness test and Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) (as in Table 3 where VIF was less than the
threshold value of 5) were used to test for multicollinearity and no serious issues were found regarding these assumptions. To test the
hypotheses of the research model, structural equation modelling (SEM using AMOS 25 was used in the study). SEM helps in identifying
the direct and indirect relationship between measured and latent variables simultaneously (Hair et al., 2016; Ullman et al., 2001).
Hence, it is most suitable for our study as the study involves independent variables, mediating variables and dependent variable. Before
proceeding further with the model, the model fit indices were checked using various goodness and badness of fit indices. The various fit
indices used are presented in Table 4 and the model shows a good fit to test the hypotheses of our study.

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G. Maheshwari and K.L. Kha The International Journal of Management Education 20 (2022) 100553

Table 3
Descriptive measures, Construct correlation matrix, VIF and square root of AVE (bold in diagonal).
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Mean SD VIF

1. Age (in years) N/A 21.79 4.43 1.19

2. Gender (Female = 1, Male = 0) -.164** N/A 0.76 0.48 1.08
3. Major (Business = 1, Non- -.214** .199** N/A 0.52 0.50 1.10
Business = 0)
4. Educational Support (ES) 0.002 0.101* 0.044 0.846 4.56 1.06 1.09
5. Personal Attitude (PA) 0.098 − 0.023 0.048 .149** 0.716 4.41 0.94 1.45
6. Subjective Norm (SN) .109* 0.009 0.059 .246** .356** 0.806 4.88 0.924 1.28
7. Perceived Behavioural Control .299** − 0.023 0.020 .251** .482** .342** 0.708 3.77 0.93 1.65
(PBC)
8. Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy .121* − 0.062 0.073 .135** .475** .365** .479** 0.712 4.50 0.99 1.46
(ESE)
9. Entrepreneurial Intentions (EI) .144** − 0.047 0.026 .189** .612** .316** .588** .674** 0.743 4.29 1.10 N/A

* for p < .05, ** for p < .01.

4. Results

4.1. Reliability and validity

Reliability for all the items of each construct was tested using Cronbach’s alpha and the values for all the five factors (ES, PA, PBC,
ESE and EI) was found between 0.81 and 0.91 which is higher than the recommended threshold level of 0.7, suggesting high reliability
of items. Further, composite reliability (CR) and average variance extracted (AVE) were used to check the convergent validity of the
constructs. The values of CR for each construct are above 0.8 which suggests high internal consistency and AVE values are also higher
than 0.5 (Byrne, 2013). Hence, all constructs met the threshold values, and all factor loadings were higher than 0.6 except one item of
EI (Table 2).
Finally, discriminant validity was accessed by taking the square root of AVE (as shown by the diagonal displayed in bold in Table 3)
and all the values in the diagonal exceeded the respective correlation coefficients of other constructs. Table 3 represents the descriptive
measures and correlations between different variables of the study. The mean of entrepreneurial intentions of 4.29 which is above the
mid-point of 3.5 in the scale, indicating the positive intentions. Also, the mean of all the independent variables (ES, PA, SN, PBC, ESE)
are all above the mid-point of 3.5 with PBC just above 3.5.

4.2. Common method variance

In order to diagnose if common method variance (CMV) pose a threat to the analysis and interpretation of data, an initial analysis
was conducted by using Harman’s single factor test and the result indicated that there was no threat of common method bias due to
single factor accounting for 40.2% which is lower than 50% of total variance explained (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Due to criticism
against the effectiveness of Harman’s single factor test (Fuller et al., 2016), next the more rigorous marker variable technique sug­
gested by Lindell and Whitney (2001) was carried out to provide more robust test to CMV. The marker variable used to test common
method bias was ICT infrastructure having 3-items (Table 5a) (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.78) which was theoretically unrelated to the any
of constructs of the model (as can be seen in Table 5b where the correlation of ICT is insignificant with any of the variables of the
study). Next, the partial correlation approach was used for checking whether the partialling out method variance reduces the original
correlations among the constructs of this study or remained significant after the marker variable was included (Lindell & Whitney,
2001). An inspection from Table 5b shows that all zero-order correlations (as above the diagonal) were significant after adjusting for
CMV using marker variable (noted below the diagonal) which suggested that CMV is not enough to bias this study.

4.3. Structure model results

Once the validity, reliability, and common variance bias were tested on proposed research model, the results from the structural
equation model were analyzed to test the designed hypotheses of the study. The path coefficients are used for testing the direct effect
while Sobel test (Baron & Kenny, 1986; Preacher & Leonardelli, 2001) is used to analyze the mediating (ES → PA → ESE, ES → SN →

Table 4
Model fit indices.
Index Value Acceptable range Reference

Cmin/df 2.352 <3 Bentler and Bonett (1980)

GFI 0.872 >0.8 Hooper et al. (2008)
TLI 0.903 >0.9 Forza and Filippini (1998)
CFI 0.916 >0.9 Quintana and Maxwell (1999)
RMSEA 0.058 <0.08 Hu and Bentler (1999)

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G. Maheshwari and K.L. Kha The International Journal of Management Education 20 (2022) 100553

Table 5a
Marker variable items.
Marker Variable items: ICT Infrastructure (Zhang & Li, 2018) (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.782)

ICT1: In my country, there is widespread broadband availability in public places such as airports, parks etc
ICT2: Electricity is readily available in my country to support online activities
ICT3: There is wide broadband internet availability to support online activities

All items are measured on 7-point Likert-scale (similar scale to other constructs of this study).

Table 5b
Correlations to check CMV.
1 2 3 4 5 6

1. EI 1 .203** .737** .399** .729** .815**

2. ES .202** 1 .191** .240** .311** .158**
3. PA .737** .191** 1 .449** .611** .610**
4. SN .398** .238** .449** 1 .477** .497**
5. PBC .729** .310** .611** .477** 1 .634**
6. ESE .815** .157** .610** .497** .634** 1
ICT 0.014 0.066 0.016 0.054 0.016 0.016

* for p < .05, ** for p < .01.

Correlations adjusted for Common Method Variance (CMV) are reported below the diagonal and zero-order correlations are reported above the
diagonal.

ESE and ES → PBC → ESE) and serial mediating effect (ES → PA → ESE → EI, ES → SN → ESE → EI and ES → PBC → ESE → EI) of the
variables on EI. Table 6 represents the hypotheses results of this study.
There is no direct relationship found with ES on EI (H1), although there was an indirect effect on ES on EI mediated by PA. SN and
PBC and hence first hypothesis was not supported. The results suggest that ES has a positive and significant relationship with PA, SN
and PBC, indicating that the second hypothesis (H2a, H2b and H2c) is supported. Next, the third hypothesis of this study (H3a, H3b, H3c) is
fully supported as well, wherein it indicates that PA positively impacts ESE and also PA shows a mediating positive effect on ES and
ESE. Further, PA and ESE act as a mediator between ES and EI. Hence, the third hypothesis supports that ES has an indirect effect on EI
through PA and ESE. Further, the fourth hypothesis of this study (H4a, H4b, H4c) is fully supported as well, wherein SN positively
impacts ESE and further SN shows a mediating positive effect on ES and ESE. Also, SN and ESE act as a mediator between ES and EI
indicating the significant indirect effect of ES on EI. The fifth hypothesis of this study (H5a, H5b, H5c) is also fully supported wherein
PBC shows a direct significant effect of ESE and ES and acts as a mediator and also ES has an indirect effect on EI via PBC and ESE. The
results from the last hypothesis of the study indicate that ESE has a positive significant relationship with EI suggesting the support for
the sixth hypothesis of this study.
None of the control variables (age, gender and major) are found to be significant. To conclude, ES plays an indirect role in affecting
EI with PA, SN, PBC and ESE as mediating variables but shows no direct relationship with EI. The research model with hypotheses
results is shown in Fig. 2.

Table 6
Hypotheses results.
Hypotheses Path Direct Effect (Path coefficient) Indirect Effect (Sobel test coefficient) Results

H1 ES → EI 0.062 – Not supported

H2a ES → PA 0.186** – Supported
H2b ES → SN 0.284*** – Supported
H2c ES → PBC 0.292*** Supported
H3a PA → ESE 0.371*** – Supported
H3b ES → PA → ESE – 3.27** Supported
H3c ES → PA → ESE → EI – 0.059** Supported
H4a SN → ESE 0.150** – Supported
H4b ES → SN → ESE – 2.712** Supported
H4c ES → SN → ESE → EI – 0.36* Supported
H5a PBC → ESE 0.422*** – Supported
H5b ES → PBC → ESE – 4.436*** Supported
H5c ES → PBC → ESE → EI – 0.105*** Supported
H6 ESE → EI 0.815*** – Supported
Age → EI 0.027 – Not supported
Gender → EI - 0.009 – Not supported
Major → EI − 0.039 – Not supported

* for p < .05, ** for p < .01, *** for p < .001.

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G. Maheshwari and K.L. Kha The International Journal of Management Education 20 (2022) 100553

5. Discussion and contribution of the study

There were several purposes of this article such as to determine the relationship of educational ES mediated by TPB components
(PA, SN and PBC) and ESE on EI. The study was conducted in Vietnam and the participants were undergraduate and post-graduate
students studying in universities in Vietnam. The findings suggest that TPB components play an important role in influencing the
EI of the students and the contributions of the study are discussed next.
The first purpose of this study was to determine if there is any direct relationship of ES on EI and the study results indicate that there
is no direct effect between ES on EI which is similar to the study done by Chen et al. (2013) and Nguyen (2020), while this result is
contradicting with other past studies (Pham et al., 2021). However, ES had an impact on PA and PBC positively with PBC having a
higher impact (β = 0.292) of ES as compared to PA (β = 0.186). This result is inconsistent with the study done by Heuer and Kolvereid
(2014), while a study by Feder and Nitu (2017) supports this result. The study done by Nguyen and Choo (2020) also found a positive
impact of ES on PA but there was no significant effect found of ES on PBC in their study.
The next purpose of the study was to find if there is any association of ES on ESE via mediators (PA and PBC). The positive as­
sociations were found with PBC having a higher impact (β = 0.422) as compared to PA (β = 0.371). There were various studies that
found the effect of PA and PBC (Liu et al., 2019) on ESE or the relationship of ES on ESE (Zhao et al., 2005) but no study was conducted
to find this kind of mediating effect as conducted in this study. Further, ESE affects EIs of students positively with β = 0.815 and these
results are in line with other studies done by Hoang et al. (2020).
The third and the main contribution of this article is related to the results towards the final purpose of the study which was about
finding the indirect effect of ESE on EI through mediating variables; PA, PBC and ESE. The results suggest that PA and ESE acts as
mediators between ESE and EI, while there is no significant association found with ESE on EI with PBC and ESE as mediators. Various
studies were conducted to find the effect of ES, PA, PBC and ESE on EI (Doanh & Bernat, 2019), but none of the research study was
based on this mediating effect.
Finally, none of the control variables; age, gender, and major of the students were found to have association with EI of the students.
The gender was found to be significant in studies done by Zhao et al. (2005); Zhang et al. (2014); Hendieh et al. (2019), while the
research of Contreras Torres et al. (2017a, 2017b) found no gender difference. Wu and Wu (2008), Zhang et al. (2014) in their study
found that the students major had a significant impact on entrepreneurial intentions, but this study did not find similar results to other
studies. Age was found to be significant in a study done by Hatak et al. (2015) but age was not significant in this study to impact
entrepreneurship intentions of the students. The findings of this study provide empirical evidence that entrepreneurship education
although does not motivate the students directly to pursue entrepreneurship but indirectly stimulates entrepreneurship attitude and
spirit of students towards the entrepreneurship. Next, the discussion is provided on the theoretical and practical contributions of our
study results.

5.1. Theoretical contribution

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study in Vietnam that is conducted to investigate the serial mediation effect of PA and
ESE, SN and ESE, PBC and ESE on the association of ES on EI. As a theoretical contribution, our research makes a strong contribution in

Fig. 2. Results from SEM of the proposed research model.

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G. Maheshwari and K.L. Kha The International Journal of Management Education 20 (2022) 100553

expanding the theory of planned behaviour by Ajzen (2002) and the entrepreneurial event model developed by Shepero (1975). Our
empirical findings confirm that in Vietnam, PA, SN, PBC and ESE plays an important mediating role between educational support to
form the entrepreneurial intentions of the students. Hence, this study suggests that entrepreneurial education provided in the uni­
versities will help in developing the positive attitude, subjective norms and perceived control behaviours of the students along with
stimulating the students’ entrepreneurial self-efficacy and this will have a fundamental effect on the entrepreneurship career of the
future generation. Hence, the findings of this study provide a different view for scholars who are looking into entrepreneurship and
pedagogical studies.
While the entrepreneurship concept is widely acknowledged, most of the literature on entrepreneurship intentions has been carried
out in developed economies where the entrepreneurial ecosystem is advanced. This research, in an attempt to narrow this existing gap,
and is conducted in a fast-growing-economy country, which might provide valuable insight to academic scholars and practitioners for
future research. Many studies have proved that entrepreneurship education had a direct positive impact on entrepreneurial intentions
of students, such as Hoang et al. (2020); Liu et al. (2019); Oyugi (2015); Roxas (2014), while very limited research reported the indirect
relationship between ES and EI, but none of the studies reported the serial mediation effect of ES on EI. Thus, this study has contributed
to the existing literature by demonstrating the indirect relationship between entrepreneurship educational support and entrepre­
neurial intentions mediated by three antecedents of TPB and entrepreneurial self-efficacy in the context of Vietnam. The investigation
on the effect of entrepreneurial education, though not directly significant but indirectly has an effect on EI. Hence, this research can
play an important role in addressing the reason as to why some of the students have the intentions to become an entrepreneur even
though the educational system does not support that.

5.2. Practical contribution

According to Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2018, entrepreneurial education-post-school and governmental programs
were two entrepreneurial condition indicators that had the lowest ranking, which was 40/54 and 43/54 respectively (Tung et al.,
2020). As a practical contribution, the universities can include entrepreneurial education in their curriculum as the study results
indicate that entrepreneurial educational support has an indirect effect on entrepreneurial intentions. It is worth noting that entre­
preneurial education support does affect the students’ personal attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control and if the
universities arrange some entrepreneurial competitions and activities related to application to a real-world context, it will give stu­
dents the confidence to become an entrepreneur and will help in enhancing their attitude towards entrepreneurship. Despite the
government’s efforts to enhance autonomy in the educational system and decentralize higher institutions by enacting various policies
since in the year 2000, there still exists challenges due to passive teaching and learning methods, deficient qualified skills and
knowledge, and inadequate connection to the labor market in the country (Hayden & Thiep, 2010). Hence, the government might need
to support the universities and the students further by framing the policies which can provide required support to universities and also
facilitate students to access university entrepreneurial courses at reduced tuition fees.
To enhance the entrepreneurial intentions of students, there should be a focus on entrepreneurship education and it is suggested
that instead of just using available sources from foreign countries without considering the suitability, universities should accommodate
appropriate teaching methods and materials to fit in the local Vietnamese context. The entrepreneurial perceptions and mindsets of
students will be stimulated further if teaching approaches are attractive, effective, and are able to encourage the involvement of
students in such activities that flourish the required skills for entrepreneurship. Moreover, institutions can set up a network to ex­
change good practices and experiences among entrepreneurial instructors, as well as arrange entrepreneurship workshops, talk shows,
and seminars with entrepreneurial experts to further improve the practical skills and knowledge of instructors. In addition, the role of
industry partner should be utilised to minimize the gap between theoretical concepts and authentic learning by integrating the real-
world application of entrepreneurial ideas in the market and this should be embedded in teaching methods or curriculum design. With
high quality and authentic learning components in the curriculum, entrepreneurial education will become appealing to students, and
this might directly enhance their entrepreneurial intentions by polishing their self-evaluation, self-belief, and perceptions towards
entrepreneurship. Along with providing entrepreneurship education, universities can establish platforms to assist students in starting a
business by introducing entrepreneurial hubs in the universities.

6. Conclusion, implications and limitations

With the target to achieve industrialization, educational reforms were demanded by the Central Steering Committee, followed by
the government’s approval of the Higher Education Reform Agenda in 2005 to advance the educational system by the year 2020. In
recent years, especially from the year 2018, entrepreneurship studies have been growing in Vietnam as entrepreneurship is considered
the key area for the economic growth of the country. To encourage entrepreneurship in the country, the Vietnamese government has
established a number of funds such as SpeedUP, National Technology Innovation Fund (NATIF), to support startups at various levels
(Deshmukh, 2020). The government has also launched various platforms such as startup city and mobile application laboratory (mLab)
to provide details about startups, to connect investors with entrepreneurs, to provide training to the entrepreneurs (Deshmukh, 2020).
In addition to the support provided by the government, it is equally important to provide the knowledge and skills to the university
students on entrepreneurship. It was crucial to understand as to how entrepreneurship education, the attitude of an individual, their
ability to perceive the job as easy or difficult, and their entrepreneurship self-efficacy contribute towards entrepreneurship intentions.
Several empirical studies have supported that entrepreneurship can be encouraged if the students are taught the relevant course in
their universities (Pham et al., 2021). However, most of this research is done in developed countries with very few in emerging or

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G. Maheshwari and K.L. Kha The International Journal of Management Education 20 (2022) 100553

developing economies. This study is one of the attempts to study the impact of entrepreneurial education mediated by PA, SN, PBC and
ESE on EI of university students in one of the South-East Asian emerging economies, Vietnam.
The findings of this study showed that although ES does not directly affect EI, but has an indirect effect mediated by PA, SN, PBC
and ESE. The ES does have a direct effect on PA, SN and PBC with an indirect effect on ESE mediated by TPB components It was well
found that the entrepreneurial intentions were increasing year by year, but the percentage of perception about entrepreneurship
intentions was found to be lower in 2017 (53%) as compared to 56.8% in 2015 (GEM, 2017). The findings of this study suggest that
PBC has a direct relationship with ES and hence to increase PBC the educational institutions can support in developing the strong desire
of an individual to become an entrepreneur, help in dealing with the situations and developing entrepreneurial self-efficacy. This will
complement the support provided by the government to enable a supportive entrepreneurial environment and will result in a higher
number of startups. Hence, the educational institutions should provide enough support to design the courses in their programs in such
a way that can encourage entrepreneurial personality development which includes enhancing students’ attitude towards entrepre­
neurship, improve problem-solving skills, strong desire to succeed and develop self-efficacy. All these will help in developing
self-employment and firms’ creating propensity through the education system in Vietnam which will help in fostering creativity,
self-dependence, and innovation.
This study has few limitations which would provide an avenue to conduct future research. First, to improve the robustness of the
results and being able to generalize the findings better, it is advisable to consider the bigger sample size and stratified probability
sampling for future research, although this research has tried best to address the generalising issues as discussed earlier in the paper.
Next, this study was a cross-sectional study and to understand the consistency in the results, it is better to conduct the repetitive cross-
sectional (pooled cross-sectional) study at different point of time in the future. Finally, this study only used quantitative results to
understand the factors impacting entrepreneurial intentions, but in the future, the mixed study using qualitative approach can be used
as well by conduct interviews of the students to get an in-depth insight from the students about their intentions to start the business.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Greeni Maheshwari: Methodology, Formal analysis, Results, Findings, Discussion and Conclusion. Khanh Linh Kha: Literature
review.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Dr. Greeni Maheshwari has been working as a Lecturer and course coordinator at RMIT Vietnam in the School of Business and Management
since February 2008. She gained a doctorate in business administration (DBA) in Global Business and Leadership from California, USA. She is
teaching and coordinating quantitative courses such as business statistics, quantitative analysis and basic econometrics. She was the recipient
of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Innovation in 2020, the Vice Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Contributions to
Learning and Teaching: Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning, Higher Education in 2018, the Excellence in Teaching Award in
2017 at RMIT University and the Award for Excellence in Learning and Teaching in 2016 at RMIT University, Vietnam. She has been awarded
two gold medals during her engineering studies. She was awarded the Fellow of Higher Education Academy (FHEA) in 2018 and Senior
Fellow of Higher Education (SFHEA) in 2020 from the Higher Education Academy, UK. Her research interest lies in gender studies, lead­
ership, educational topics, entrepreneurship, SMEs and finance-related topics.

Ms. Khanh Linh Kha is currently working as a Business Research Analyst at Selling Simplified Group and is a graduate from RMIT University,
Vietnam in School of Business and Management with Bachelor of Business (Economics and Finance). She has experiences in business research
and data analytics in finance and marketing industry, and academic research on social sciences.

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