Abstract:

In Study 1, Vietnamese entrepreneurs (N = 17) were surveyed about their personal values and motives as well as their business outcomes. We found that Vietnamese entrepreneurs' top five life goals included happiness, a sense of accomplishment, a comfortable life, family security, and national security. They endorsed instrumental values such as intellectual, capable, responsible, self-controlled, and honest. Their values were to some extent similar to those of American counterparts as reported in Fagenson's (1993) study. Among entrepreneurial motives reported, there were some non-economic ones which lent credence to the concept that Vietnamese entrepreneurial motives were multi-dimensional. In Study 2, we used the "grounded theory" approach (Locke, 2001) to induce a conceptual framework of Vietnamese entrepreneurial motives from interview data (N = 9). As predicted, we found that Vietnamese entrepreneurs mainly founded their businesses (1) to meet market demands; (2) to gain control over their work and/or financial aspects; (3) to lift others off unemployment, and (4) to pursue a desire or fulfill their capability.

Keywords: VIETNAMESE SMALL AND MEDIUM BUSINESSES; VIETNAMESE ENTREPRENEURS; PERSONAL VALUES; ENTREPRENEURIAL MOTIVES; BUSINESS OUTCOMES

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1163/156921008X318709

Affiliations: 1: Department of Psychology, Room 319, California State University, Long Beach, 1250 Bellflower Blvd., Long Beach, CA 90840, USA 2: Department of Management, Towson University, Towson, MD 21252, USA