PHÂN TÍCH CÁC YẾU TỐ ẢNH HƯỞNG ĐẾN MỤC ĐÍCH KINH DOANH CỦA CÁC NHÀ PHÁT TRIỂN PHẦN MỀM TRONG NGÀNH CÔNG NGHỆ THÔNG TIN TẠI MIỀN BẮC VIỆT NAM

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ANALYSING ELEMENTS IMPACT TO ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTION

OF SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS IN THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

IN NORTHERN VIETNAM

Doan Thi Thanh Hien, Dinh Ngoc Lan*

University of Agricultural and Forestry - TNU

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the relationship of software developers’ capabilities on entrepreneurial
intentions in the information technology (IT) industry. There are a number of individual factors
that motivate a person’s decision to become an entrepreneur. Five independent factors - technical
skills, industry knowledge, creativity, cooperation and communication, and benchmarking were
adopted in this study. Entrepreneurial intention was selected as dependent factors in the IT and
software industries. Data were collected from entrepreneurs and employees working in these
industries in northern Vietnam and statistically analysed using structural equation modelling. The
analysis showed that software developers’ capabilities significantly affected entrepreneurial
intentions.

Keywords: benchmarking; cooperation and communication; creativity; entrepreneurial intention; 
industry knowledge; software developers’ capabilities; technical skills

INTRODUCTION*

Entrepreneurship is a process by which
individuals pursue opportunities to run their
own business or to develop creative ideas
inside the organisation where they work. It
plays a vital role in new business creation,

expansion of existing business, and social and
economic development. Entrepreneurship is
very important, but identifying a goal and
opportunities must be done first. Given that
our lives are becoming increasingly reliant on
computer software, furthermore, researchers
and businessmen regard IT as a competitive
tool in a business environment also.
Therefore, the current point in time is a
golden one to establish business opportunities
in the information technology (IT) industry.
Others, there are many aspects of the IT
industry that warrant study; however,
focusing research on the human aspect,
especially on developers, will be highly
beneficial. We are seeking answers to the
questions: what makes a software developer
great? More specifically, we aim to identify
the relationship between a software
developers and entrepreneurial intention in

* Tel: 09143 89928, Email:

the information and communication
technology (IT) industry. This paper is aimed
at bringing essential knowledge to researchers
and practitioners in the IT field. Moreover,
the results of this study will enable
businessmen and developers to envision the

path to success more clearly. The experiment
was undertaken in Vietnam, a country with a
developing economy and a potential location
for IT companies. This study will identify
new opportunities for people who desire to be
involved in both IT and entrepreneurship.

METHODS

Technical skills (TS)

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Table 1. Summarises the operational definitions of the variables in this study

Constructs Descriptions References

Technical skills Skill, expertise, or technical competence acquired through
training and education or learned on the job and that are
specific to each work setting related to the specific field.

Medina, 2010 [1]

Industry 
knowledge

Information acquired through sensory input about
foundation knowledge and entrepreneurship. It markedly
increases an individual's or a group's capacity for effective
action.

Huber, 1991 [2]; Massad and

Tucker, 2009 [3]

Creativity The process involving ability, orientation, state of mind, or
set of skills to make something new.

Cropley, 1999 [4]; Ward, Finke,
and Smith,1995 [5]

Cooperation 
and 
communication

The process of transfer, exchange of information, and
coordination that takes place between partners for
agreeing on common goals and for the coordinated
achievement of common work results among the
participants.

Bauknecht, 1995 [6]

Benchmarking A systematic approach through which organisations can
measure their performances against the best-in-class
organisations. It is a powerful and effective tool to learn
from others and thereby achieve excellence.

Attiany, 2009 [7]; Besterfield,
2011[8]

Entrepreneuria
l intentions

Individual's desire and attitudes with regard to starting a
business or forming a new organization in the future.

Krueger Jr., Reilly, and Carsrud, 2000
[9]; Zarefard and Cho, 2018 [10]
H1: Technical skills positively affect

entrepreneurial intention in the IT industry.

Industry knowledge (IK)

Knowledge refers to an individual’s
appreciation of the concepts, skills, and
mentality expected of an entrepreneur [5].
Linan [13] explains that exposure to the
business environment makes people more
self-efficacious about their own abilities to
become entrepreneurs. Moreover, Huber [2]
found a statistically significant relationship
between knowledge and skills with
entrepreneurship intention. Previous studies
have proposed that knowledge provides the
entrepreneur with the capacity to identify
opportunities

H2: Industry knowledge positively affects 
entrepreneurial intention in the IT industry.

Creativity (CR)

Many researchers have studied creativity in
the systems development process.
Entrepreneurial creativity leads to
self-employment that provides individuals with a
platform to express their creativity and to
build their own business enterprise [13]. A
high level of creativity in an individual has a
strong positive influence over entrepreneurial

intention [10]. Based on the above discussion,
we present the following hypotheses:

H3: Creativity positively affects 
entrepreneurial intention in the IT industry.

Cooperation and communication (CAC)

While researching the relationship between
skills of software developers and
entrepreneurial intention, we noticed that
communication and cooperation are important
in every step of business development,
especially in the early entrepreneurial phases.
Davidsson [15] stated that exposure and
education are highly interrelated during the
start-up of a new business venture. Therefore,
we make the following hypotheses:

H4: Cooperation and communication

positively affects entrepreneurial intention in 
the IT industry

Benchmarking (BM)

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with benchmarking was predicted to increase
the overall predictive power of the three TPB
factors (attitude, subjective norm, and
Self-efficacy) and the relative influence of attitude
on the intention to do business. Doll and
Ajzen [17] found that the power of TPB to

predict intention was greater among people
who had prior experience with the behaviour
under examination. We surmised that this
principle would also apply to developers
having benchmarking capability. Thus, we
propose the following hypotheses:

Table 2. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Measurements Factor

loading Alpha 
Technical skills (TS)

I have the capability to design entire application architectures.
I have the capability to design software and networks.

I have the capability to understand the lifecycle of IT/software development.

I have the capability to use software development tools.

0.891
0.864
0.751
0.792

0.871

Industry knowledge (IK)

I have knowledge about IT and the software industry.

I have knowledge about target markets and target customers with my software project.
I have knowledge about customer trends with regard to software applications.

My knowledge can filter information overload in my project.

0.73
0.875
0.972
0.803

0.850

Creativity (CR)

I think of myself as a creative person.

I have the capability to create ideas for new software.

I have the capability to use new development tools to execute my project.
I have the capability to build new software ideas from other people.

0.865
0.850
0.873
0.890

0.906

Cooperation and communication (CAC)

I have the capability to cooperate with different technical parts simultaneously.
I have the capability to participate in discussions with team members.

I have the capability to cooperate with non-technical people.
I have the capability to communicate with customers/users.

0.885
0.839
0.720
0.865

0.837

Benchmarking (BM)

I have the capability to evaluate my current software and performance.

I have the capability to compare my software with the best kinds of similar software.
I have the capability to know the strengths and weaknesses of the best competitor to
the project.

I have the capability to innovate based on the achievements of others.

0.744
0.892
0.849

0.853

0.907

Entrepreneurial intentions (EI)

I have a strong intention to become my own boss.
I have a start-up intention with new and innovative ideas.
I always try to identify new business opportunities.
I am interested in business in the innovation industry.

0.894
0.906
0.836
0.723

0.884

Source: Calculating by Author

H5: Benchmarking positively affects entrepreneurial intention in the IT industry

Data Collection

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for ease of data collection. The population
size was about 600. We excluded all cases
where data were missing and did not consider
those people who did not state their ﬁeld of
study. For the final analysis, 258 people
(43%) questionnaires were used. The number
of questionnaires was sent to 50 companies
ranging in size from small to large. The
answers to the survey were used to calculate
for this study.

Measurement Model

Each measurement item was rated using a
seven-point Likert scale ranging from 1
(strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) in the
questionnaire. The 258 responses sufficed to
conduct a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA)
and structural equation modelling (SEM).

Exceeding the minimum sample size of 200,
as 10 per estimated parameter appears to be
the general consensus [19]. Structural
Equation Modelling (SEM) is used to confirm
the measurement as hypothesized in the
structure model and test the proposed

relationships among the study variables. SEM
is also a method suitable for samples of more
than 200 respondents. To test the structural
model and validate the research hypotheses,
AMOS 24.0 was used. The structural model
involves estimating the path coefficient,
which represents the strength of the
relationship between the independent and
dependent variables. A two-stage SEM
methodology was completed. Following the
result, of SEM will demonstrate the statistical
significance of variables.

Table 3. Analysis result of research model
Software developer’s capabilities→ Entrepreneurial

Intention (EI) β

Result of 
hypotheses test

H1:Technical skills → EI 0.501** Supported

H2:Industry knowledge → EI 0.348** Supported

H3:Creativity → EI 0.328** Supported

H4:Cooperation and communication → EI 0.238** Supported

H5: Benchmarking → EI 0.153** Supported

* Significant at P<0.05, ** Significant at P<0.01, R2= 0.549

X2 X2/df GFI TLI CFI NFI RMSEA 
Research model 318.946 1.346 0.928 0.969 0.973 0.905 0.033

Figure 1. Result of analysis

Source: Calculating by Author

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

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model. The discriminate validity of the scale
was analysed to indicate the extent to which
the measures in the model differ from other
measures in the same. The analysis results
demonstrate the validity of the measurement
model. It means that software developer's
capabilities have positively effect on
entrepreneurial intention.

Table 3 below shows the summary of the fit
indices and figure 1 shows the result of
research model (SEM). As a result, in the
table 3 the ratio of X2 to the degree of
freedom (df) has to be mentioned first as one
of the most important indices. The ratio is
equal to 1.346 that is within the recommended
value of 3. Considering the fit indices taken
into account as shown in Table 3, the result of

this study is regarded as an “acceptable fit” to
the data. The figure 1 below it is recognized
that all hypotheses were significant, in other
words, the path coefficients from Technical
skill, Industry knowledge, Creativity and
Cooperation and communication and
benchmarking to entrepreneurial intention are
0.501, 0.0348, 0.328, 0.238, 0.153 (p<0.01)
respectively. This demonstrating that the
software developer’s capabilities has positive
effect on dependent factor.

CONCLUSION

In the global information economy, with the
development of IT, the actions and outcomes
of a software developer are deeply
interconnected with the actions and outcomes
of entrepreneurs. By making these
connections explicit, in strategy formation
and in business model design, an entrepreneur
needs to understand what developers are
doing so that he can more efficiently interpret
new information, identify opportunities more
effectively, evaluate alternative courses of
action and, thereby, effectively link actions
with expected outcomes. It is better when
entrepreneurs are developers. This article
brought together insights from various
sources to present evidence-based lessons

learned for each factor in the capabilities of a
developer having the intention of becoming
an entrepreneur. In the literature review,

Ashley-Cotleur, King, and Solomon found
that there are a number of individual factors
that motivate a person’s decision to become
an entrepreneur. The aim of this study is to
investigate the relationship between software
developers and entrepreneurial intentions. In
this study, we choose five factors of
individual from many factors because we
found that if someone has intention to do
anything, it must be start from individual’s
characteristics, other factors like economics,
environment… just additional external factors
to intention. Our analysis validated the
proposed research hypotheses of H1, H2, H3,
H4, and H5. The result of this study indicates
that all hypotheses were accepted that
concerning the dependence between software
developers’ capabilities and entrepreneurial
intention is validated. It is clear that if the
developers in our study had needed
capability, they would know what they need
to do and what they need to improve if they
want to better or they want to become
entrepreneurs. The results of this study have
valuable implications for the study of
entrepreneurship and for public policy makers

willing to stimulate start-up intentions with
developers. Besides external factors from
prior researches, should be focus on
individual factors, especially new factors like
benchmarking, industry knowledge that have
directly effect on intentions and decisions of
people in general and software developers in
particular. The results also provide insights
into how to promote developers to become
entrepreneurs in the IT industry. However,
this study has also some limitations and
provides with future research challenges.

REFERENCES

1. Medina,R.(2010). Upgrading yourself—
technical and nontechnical competencies. IEEE
Potentials,29,10.

2. Huber, H. (1991). Organizational learning: the
contributing processes and the literatures.
Organization Science, 2(1), 88–115.

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4. Cropley, A. J. (1999). Creativity and
cognition: Producing effective novelty. Roeper
Review, 21, 253-261.

5. Ward, T. B., Finke, R. A., and Smith, S. M.
(1995). Creativity and the Mind: Discovering the
Genius Within. New York: Plenum Press.

6. K. Bauknecht, T. Mühlherr, C. Sauter, and S.
Teufel, “Computerunterstützung für die
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7. Attiany, M. (2009). The role of benchmarking
in Improving Institutional Performance of the
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dissertation, Not published, Arab academy for
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G. H.,& Besterfeild, M. (2003). Total Quality
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9. Krueger, N.F.; Reilly, M.D.; Carsrud, A.L.
Competing models of entrepreneurial intention. J.
Bus. Ventur. 2000, 15, 411–432.

10. Zarefard, M. & Cho, S.E., (2018).
Entrepreneurs’ managerial competencies and
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11. Papulova, Z., & Makros, M. (2007).
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Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research, Vol. 5 No.
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14. Feldman, D.C. and Bolino, M.C. (2000),
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16. Leibfried, K. H. J. and McNair, C. J. (1992).
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18. Zarefard, M. & Cho, S.E., (2017). Relationship
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19. Hair, J.F., Black, W.C., Babin, B.J. &
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TĨM TẮT

PHÂN TÍCH CÁC YẾU TỐ ẢNH HƯỞNG ĐẾN MỤC ĐÍCH KINH DOANH CỦA 
CÁC NHÀ PHÁT TRIỂN PHẦN MỀM TRONG NGÀNH

CÔNG NGHỆ THÔNG TIN TẠI MIỀN BẮC VIỆT NAM

Đoàn Thị Thanh Hiền, Đinh Ngọc Lan*

Trường Đại học Nông Lâm – ĐH Thái Nguyên

Bài báo này nghiên cứu tác động của các yếu tố đến mục đích kinh doanh của các nhà phát triển
phần mềm trong ngành cơng nghệ thơng tin (CNTT). Có nhiều đặc điểm của cá nhân ảnh hưởng
đến động lực trở thành doanh nhân của con người, các biến độc lâp bao gồm kỹ năng kỹ thuật,
kiến thức về ngành, sự sáng tạo, hợp tác và giao tiếp, và điểm chuẩn đã được lựa chọn và sử dụng
cho nghiên cứu. Trong khi đó, mục đích kinh doanh đã được chọn là biến phụ thuộc của mơ hình
nghiên cứu. Dữ liệu được thu thập từ các doanh nhân và nhân viên làm việc trong các ngành công
nghệ thông tin ở miền Bắc Việt Nam và được phân tích bằng phương pháp phân tích thống kê và
sửdụng mơ hình phương trình cấu trúc (SEM). Phân tích cho thấy năng lực của các nhà phát triển
phần mềm ảnh hưởng đáng kể đến mục đích kinh doanh của họ.

Từ khóa: Điểm chuẩn, hợp tác và giao tiếp, sự sáng tạo, mục đích kinh doanh, kiến thức về 
ngành, năng lực của các nhà phát triển phần mềm, kỹ năng kỹ thuật

Ngày nhận bài: 20/8/2018; Ngày phản biện: 06/9/2018; Ngày duyệt đăng: 12/10/2018

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