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. 2023 Mar 16:1–24. Online ahead of print. doi: 10.1007/s13132-023-01137-8

Financial Knowledge Matters Entrepreneurial Decisions: A Survey in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Quoc N Tran 1, Trang M T Phung 2,✉, Nhut H Nguyen 3, Tho H Nguyen 4
PMCID: PMC10018588

Abstract

Knowledge, general and specific, plays a role in entrepreneurship. Little is known about the role of general knowledge in entrepreneurial intentions. This study fills the gap by proposing financial knowledge as general knowledge and entrepreneurial education as specific knowledge, and investigates their effects on entrepreneurial intentions and the three motivational factors including attitudes, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control. Using survey data of 480 undergraduates and the structural equation modeling approach, we find a significant impact of financial knowledge on entrepreneurial intentions and all three motivational factors. Entrepreneurial education does not have a significant direct impact but has an indirect effect on entrepreneurial intentions through attitude and perceived behavioral control. These results are important to educators and policymakers to design appropriate policies to improve financial knowledge due to its significant role in entrepreneurial decisions.

Keywords: Financial knowledge, Entrepreneurship, Theory of planned behavior, Vietnam

Introduction

Entrepreneurship lies at the center of economic growth and employment (Kuratko, 2005; Nurmalia et al., 2020; Shane & Venkataraman, 2000). This is also applicable in the Vietnam context. The World Bank acknowledges the success story of Vietnam development since its unification in 1975. The launch of economic reform Doi Moi in 1986 has transformed Vietnam from being one of world’s poorest nations to a middle-income economy. Vietnam’s GDP per capita increased 2.7 times to approximately US $2800 between 2000 and 2020, and poverty rates reduced drastically from more than 32% in 2011 to below 2% in 2020, according to World Bank.1 The economic reform has also changed the overall entrepreneurial setting in Vietnam (Nguyen & Mort, 2016). Today, micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have contributed over 60% to the country’s GDP and employed 47% of the labor force (OECD, 2021).

The Vietnamese government recognizes the significant contribution of SMEs to the economy and shows its commitment to promote further the SME sector and entrepreneurship in Vietnam. Hence, in 2018, the government passed the SME Support Law, which sets out several important support programs. These programs include (i) setting up the SME Development Fund and the Credit Guarantee Fund, (ii) facilitating equity finance for SMEs, (iii) offering preferential innovation support, (iv) promoting trade and exports by SMEs, and (v) providing entreprenuership eduation in the early stage of schooling. However, these programs have not been performed effectively. For example, the SME Development Fund and the Credit Guarantee Fund experience low demand. Equity finance for SMEs needs a stronger regulatory framework. The innovation support is overly focused on research and development (RandD) and its requirements effectively exclude a majority of SMEs. For entrepreneurship education, little progress has been made to integrate entrepreneurial learning at the primary and secondary levels. This may partly accounts for why many startups in Vietnam fail. The General Statistics Office of Vietnam shows that 44% of new enterprises had been halted during the period 2016–2019.2

The failure of new businesses are not uncommon in many other countries. For example, in the USA, only 36% out of 11,259 new businesses between 1991 and 2000 survived (Song et al., 2008). Data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics also show that 45% of new businesses fail during the first 5 years.3 In China, approximately 1000 projects failed in 2020 and fintech industry has the most collapsed startups.4

Lack of financial knowledge (or financial literacy) is one of the top 5 and top 10 reasons accounting for why startups fail to find success, including inadequate funding5 or insufficient financial resources,6 and inability to raise capital.7 However, academic research on the relationship between financial knowledge and entrepreneurship remains limited. There is only one published article (Ćumurović & Hyll, 2019) that examines this relationship in German and no research in developing countries. This study, therefore, fills the gap by investigating the link between financial literacy and entrepreneurial intentions among college students in a middle-income country.

This research also contributes to the existing literature in several aspects. It is the first study to combine the theory of human capital (Lucas, 1988) and the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991; Fisbein & Ajzen, 1975), highlighting the important role of general and specific knowledge in the context of entrepreneurship. We show that financial knowledge, as general knowledge, has a stronger impact on entrepreneurial intentions than does entrepreneurial education, as specific knowledge. In addition, we are the first to develop a structural equation model including both entrepreneurial education and financial knowledge as the main independent variables, with three motivational factors (attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control) as mediators and entrepreneurial intentions as the dependent variable. The extant literature only mentions a link between entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial intentions (Boukamcha, 2015; Frank et al., 2005; Hattab, 2014; Liñán, 2004; Passaro et al., 2018; Rauch & Hulsink, 2015), or between financial knowledge and entrepreneurial intentions (Ćumurović & Hyll, 2019).

The rest of the paper is structured as follows. The “Related Literature” section provides a review of the related literature and develops a conceptual framework for our hypotheses. The “Methodology” section outlines the methodology including the survey process and data description. The “Results and Discussions” section presents the results and discussions. The “Conclusions, Implications, and Further Research” section concludes with implications and potential avenues for further research.

Related Literature

Theory of Planned Behavior

Entrepreneurial intention is defined as “a self-acknowledged conviction by an individual that they intend to set up a new business venture and consciously plan to do so at some point in the future” (Thompson, 2009, p. 676). Entrepreneurial intention plays a role in forming a new enterprise in practice, as stronger intentions to start a business lead to a higher likelihood of this happening (Ajzen, 1991; Fisbein & Ajzen, 1975). According to the theory of planned behavior (TPB), the intention to perform a given behavior depends on the key three motivational factors: attitude toward a behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control (Ajzen, 1991; Fisbein & Ajzen, 1975). Attitude toward a behavior relates to the personal valuation of a behavior (Liñán & Chen, 2009) and, on average, accounts for 49% of the intention to perform that behavior (Armitage & Conner, 2001). In terms of entrepreneurship, a positive attitude toward entrepreneurship leads to a higher chance of being an entrepreneur (Kolvereid & Isaksen, 2006). Subjective norm refers to the perception of the approval from reference people of a given behavior. Simply put, it relates to the social pressure to carry out a behavior. Subjective norms explains 34% of the intention toward a behavior (Armitage & Conner, 2001). Perceived behavioral control (PBC) is defined as a person’s expectation of performing a behavior within their control (Ajzen, 1991; Fisbein & Ajzen, 1975). PBC generally explains 49% of the intention to perform a given behavior (Armitage & Conner, 2001).

Passaro et al. (2018) assert that TPB is associated with human capital theory, which is defined as “the belief that people’s learning capacities are of comparable value to other resources involved in the production of goods and services” (Lucas, 1988; Nafukho et al., 2004, pp. 545–546). A basic principle of the theory is that individuals own it, not firms (Wright et al., 2001), and people are viewed as a form of capital for development (Engelbrecht, 2003). Therefore, knowledge and training of individuals are considered a form of investment in human resources (Nafukho et al., 2004), providing the labor force, and enhancing productivity and economic growth (Nafukho et al., 2004). It is apparent that knowledge and skills acquired through education is the key measure of human capital (Schultz, 1961; Wright et al., 2001).

Hypothesis Development

There has been an increased interest among policy makers and educators regarding the importance of both financial literacy and entrepreneurship education to young individuals (Arthur, 2018). While entrepreneurship education helps improve one’s ability to create their own job and economic security, financial literacy is a crucial component to become a successful entrepreneur with financially literate decisions in investment and financial management (Arthur, 2018). Previous empirical research have investigated the roles of financial literacy and entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurship skills and found that that these two factors have a significant impact statistically and economically. For example, Saptono (2018) shows that financial literacy and entrepreneurship education improve entrepreneurship skills among college students by 9.3% and 28%, respectively. Saptono (2018) also shows a strong association between financial literacy and entrepreneurship education. Given the above evidence, our study focuses on the impact of these two factors in explaining entrepreneurial intentions.

Entrepreneurial Education

Entrepreneurial education refers to “activities aiming at developing enterprising or entrepreneurial people and increasing their understanding and knowledge about entrepreneurship and enterprise” (Heinonen & Poikkijoki, 2006, p. 81). Entrepreneurial education equips students with entrepreneurial knowledge and skills that can be applied when starting a new business. The positive linkage between entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial intentions is documented in a number of studies (Díaz-García & Jiménez-Moreno, 2010; Galloway & Brown, 2002; Liñán, 2004; Nowiński et al., 2019). However, Passaro et al. (2018) find the link between entrepreneurial education and intentions are not significant among university students, but are significant among academics. Given the above literature, we form our first hypothesis as below:

H1: Entrepreneurial Education is Positively Associated with Entrepreneurial Intentions.

Entrepreneurial education is also associated with motivational factors such as attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control (Boukamcha, 2015; Frank et al., 2005; Hattab, 2014; Liñán, 2004; Passaro et al., 2018; Rauch & Hulsink, 2015). Liñán (2004) examines the effects of entrepreneurial education on three motivational factors. Their results indicate that start-up education has a significant impact on attitude and perceived behavior control (self-efficacy) while awareness education influences subjective norm. Entrepreneurial training has a positive impact on entrepreneurial desirability (i.e., attitude toward a new venture creation) (Boukamcha, 2015), and entrepreneurial orientation (Frank et al., 2005). Hattab (2014) combines subjective norm and personal attitude to create “perceived desirability” (Shapero & Sokol, 1982) and finds a significant link of entrepreneurial education to perceived desirability. Rauch and Hulsink (2015) also explore the positive effect of entrepreneurship knowledge on attitude and perceived behavior control. Nevertheless, Passaro et al. (2018) do not find the impact of entrepreneurial education on any of the motivational factors among university students. The above literature leads us to the following hypothesis:

H2: Entrepreneurial Education is Positively Associated with Attitude, Subjective Norm, and Perceived Behavioral Control Toward Entrepreneurship, Respectively.

Financial Knowledge

Financial knowledge is defined as “measuring how well an individual can understand and use personal finance-related information” (Huston, 2010, p. 306), and “the ability to make informed judgments and informed decisions regarding the use and management of money” (Noctor et al., 1992, p. 4). Financial literacy refers to the ability to understand and make use of financial basic concepts and the capacity to do financial calculations (Lusardi & Mitchell, 2014; Servon & Kaestner, 2008). The term “financial knowledge” is sometimes used interchangeably with “financial literacy.” For example, Khan et al. (2017) asserts that “financial knowledge is a form of literacy about financial issues” (p. 3). This study follows supporters (e.g., Khan et al., 2017; Van Rooij et al., 2011).

There is a large and growing body of literature on the effect of financial knowledge on financial decisions, for example, savings, investing, borrowing (Bönte & Filipiak, 2012; Lusardi & Mitchell, 2007, 2008; Van Rooij et al., 2011), income inequality (Oliver-Márquez et al., 2021), and access to FinTech services (Hasan et al., 2022), but very little is known about the effect of financial knowledge on entrepreneurial intentions. The associations between financial knowledge, the three motivational factors, and entrepreneurial intentions are unclear in the literature (Ćumurović & Hyll, 2019; Dohse & Walter, 2012; Oseifuah, 2010). Oseifuah (2010) examines the effect of financial knowledge on entrepreneurial skills and uncovers that a higher level of financial knowledge is associated with a higher level of entrepreneurial skills. Dohse and Walter (2012) do not address financial knowledge but do mention knowledge context. These authors contend that knowledge context, both individually and regionally, plays an important role in shaping entrepreneurial intentions. Individual knowledge is the knowledge accumulated through the network of friends, family, or other personal ties. In contrast, regional knowledge is the knowledge achieved through where new firms are founded, or where the founders are living.

Several studies (Alshebami & Al Marri, 2022; Ćumurović & Hyll, 2019) find an impact of financial knowledge on entrepreneurial intentions. Namely, Alshebami and Al Marri (2022) explore that financial knowledge affects EI through saving behavior. Ćumurović and Hyll (2019) address the impact of financial knowledge on entrepreneurial intentions and confirm that, between being self-employed or being waged workers, those who tend to choose to be self-employment have higher levels of financial knowledge. Simpler, entrepreneurial decisions are increased by enhancing financial knowledge. These authors provide the following reasons why financial knowledge plays a role in entrepreneurial intentions (i.e., self-employment). First, financial knowledge can account for failure in the businesses. Low financial knowledge leads to poor financial management, lack of capital, or mis-adjustment of risks. Second, individuals aiming to be entrepreneurs need to be aware of the challenges and risks of owning enterprises. If they do not consider this aspect, they might choose to work as employees. Based on the mentioned literature, we proposes the following hypothesis:

H3: Financial Knowledge has a Positive Association with Entrepreneurial Intentions.

In the theory of planned behavior, there are three motivational antecedents of intentions to perform a behavior: attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control (Ajzen, 1991; Fisbein & Ajzen, 1975). Akhtar and Das (2019) investigate the effect of financial knowledge on these three motivational factors. Their results show that financial knowledge significantly affects attitude toward investment, but is not significant in explaining subjective norms and financial self-efficacy. Financial knowledge has an impact on perceived behavioral control measured through self-efficacy (Amagir et al., 2020; Danes & Haberman, 2007). As the literature on the role of financial knowledge in TPB remains limited, this study will investigate the impact of financial knowledge on attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control.

H4: Financial Knowledge has a Positive Association with Attitude, Subjective Norm, and Perceived Behavioral Control Toward Entrepreneurship, Respectively.

Figure 1 indicates the conceptual framework of the study:

Fig. 1.

Fig. 1

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Conceptual framework of the study

Methodology

Survey Process and Data Description

Data collection was conducted via an online survey during the COVID 19 pandemic, from February to September, 2021. The questionnaire was administrated by the collaborative research teams in the five participating universites, and sent randomly to their respecitve undergraduates. These universities are Hoa Sen University, University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, Saigon University, University of Finance–Marketing, and Ho Chi Minh City University of Transport in Vietnam. We received 480 responses with complete data.

Table 1 indicates that the sample is comprised of 32% male and 68% female students. Fifty percent of the sample students are between 21 and 22 years of age and in the third year of their university study. Forty-three percent of the students major in business, and 31% in accounting and finance. These results are in line with Nowiński et al. (2019) that females, final year students, and those majoring in business dominate the sample. In terms of family background, only 22% of the students are from families with a business background, which is similar to the corresponding 23% in Schröder et al. (2011).

Table 1.

Data description

Mean Median Std. dev Min Max
1. Financial knowledge 0.48 0.50 0.23 0 0.88
2. Entrepreneurial education 1.69 1 1.11 1 5
3. Attitude toward entrepreneurship 3.80 3.75 0.85 1 5
4. Subjective norm 3.82 4 0.93 1 5
5. Perceived behavioral control 2.99 3 1.03 1 5
6. Entrepreneurial intentions 3.80 4 0.95 1 5
7. Gender (male = 1) 0.32 0 0.47 0 1
8. Age 1.93 2 0.83 1 3
9. Year of study 3.16 3.00 0.78 1 4
10. Major in business (= 1) 0.43 0 0.49 0 1
11. Major in accounting and finance (= 1) 0.31 0 0.46 0 1
12. Family business background (= 1) 0.22 0 0.42 1 0
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Age: coded 1 as 20 or less, 2 as 21–22, and 3 as 23 or more. Year of study: 1 for freshmen, 2 for sophomores, 3 for third-year students, and 4 for fourth-year students or longer

Regarding the time spent on entrepreneurial education, ranging from 1 (very little time) to 5 (a lot of time), Table 1 shows an average of 1.69, suggesting that students learned very little about entrepreneurship in their university studies. For three motivational antecedents of TPB, most students have a positive attitude toward entrepreneurship (mean = 3.8), receive family and friends’ support of entrepreneurial intentions (mean = 3.82), and exhibit a moderate level of controlling the entrepreneurial process (mean = 2.99).

Financial knowledge is measured based on van Rooij et al.’s (2011) 16 questions. Each correct answer is assigned a value of 1 and 0 otherwise. Figure 2 presents the performance of students’ answers to these 16 financial knowledge students. The maximum number of correct answers for our student sample is 0.88 or 14 questions, and less than 10% of the students could achieve this level in the financial knowledge test. On the other extreme, approximately 7% of the students could not provide any correct answer in the financial knowledge test. Figure 2 also shows that nearly 60% students have an average (0.5) or higher scores. Importantly, male students generally have more correct answers and perform better in the financial knowledge test than female students, which is consistent with previous studies (Bottazzi & Lusardi, 2020; Klapper & Lusardi, 2020; Lusardi et al., 2010).

Fig. 2.

Fig. 2

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Gender differences in financial knowledge

Measures and Reliability Tests

This study has ten variables; namely financial knowledge, entrepreneurial education, three motivational factors (attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control), entrepreneurial intentions, and four demographic variables (gender, year of study, academic major, and family business background). Of these, financial knowledge and entrepreneurial education are the main independent variables, entrepreneurial intention is the dependent variable, and the three motivational factors are dependents and mediators, with demographics being the control variables.

Financial knowledge is derived from the 16 questions (van Rooij et al., 2011), and entrepreneurial education is captured with a single question (Nowiński et al., 2019) “how much time during your university studies was devoted to studying entrepreneurship?” The 5-point Likert scale ranges from 1 (very little time) to 5 (a lot of time). We use the questions in Liñán and Chen (2009) to measure entrepreneurial intentions (INTEN, 6 items) and the three motivational factors of attitude (ATTDE, 5 items), subjective norm (SNORM, 3 items), and perceived behavioral control (COTRO, 6 items), which are shown in the Appendix. Demographic variables included gender, year of study, academic major, and family business background. These variables are widely used in previous studies (Chaudhary, 2017; Hart et al., 2020; İlhan Ertuna & Gurel, 2011; Liñán & Chen, 2009; Solesvik, 2013), as well as in the latest review by Abbasianchavari and Moritz (2021). As the data collection for these variables use 5-point Likert scales, this study undertakes several tests to ensure a model fit.

Regarding the reliability test (based on Cronbach’s alpha), Table 2 shows that four variables each maintain the number of original items, with Cronbach’s alpha greater than 0.7, 0.885 (INTEN), 0.853 (ATTDE), 0.821(SNORM), and 0.94 (COTRO), indicating the consistency of the entire scales (Hair et al., 2014). The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) are presented in the next section.

Table 2.

Results of the reliability test

Factors Scale mean if item deleted Scale variance if item deleted Corrected item-total correlation Squared multiple correlation Cronbach’s alpha
1. Entrepreneurial intentions (INTEN) 0.89
INTE1 19.11 20.22 0.52 0.34
INTE2 18.80 19.60 0.70 0.53
INTE3 18.71 19.52 0.68 0.50
INTE4 18.98 18.09 0.80 0.69
INTE5 18.85 18.86 0.67 0.53
INTE6 19.09 17.31 0.82 0.72
2. Attitude (ATTDE) 0.853
ATDE1 15.5521 11.855 .524 .293
ATDE2 15.6375 10.244 .742 .576
ATDE3 15.1896 11.582 .574 .361
ATDE4 15.4563 10.407 .771 .602
ATDE5 15.7396 10.193 .721 .555
3. Subjective norms (SNORM) 0.821
NORM1 7.5625 3.721 .620 .407
NORM2 7.5646 3.578 .754 .574
NORM3 7.8188 3.911 .657 .477
4. Perceived behavioral control (COTRO) 0.94
COTR1 14.7000 27.400 .814 .684
COTR2 15.0938 26.494 .811 .685
COTR3 14.9417 26.414 .857 .751
COTR4 15.0000 27.035 .813 .700
COTR5 15.0813 26.555 .836 .736
COTR6 14.9646 27.278 .791 .642
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Factor Analysis (EFA and CFA)

Table 3 presents the results of the exploratory factor analysis (EFA), with varimax-rotated factor matrices. Among the abovementioned 20 original items, only 17 items are divided into 4 factors (3 items are removed due to their loadings being lower than 0.5). These 4 factors are factor 1, COTRO with 6 items; factor 2, INTEN with 4 items; factor 3, ATTDE with 4 items; and factor 4, SNORM with 3 items. These 17 items all have their communalities8 greater than 0.5, being sufficient to proceed with the rotation of the factor matrix. These four factors also account for 74% of the variability in the original model.

Table 3.

Results of exploratory factor analysis (EFA)

Varimax-rotated loadings Factor
Set of items 1 2 3 4 Communality
COTRO INTEN ATTDE SNORM
COTR3 .863 .819
COTR5 .863 .799
COTR4 .844 .769
COTR2 .825 .763
COTR6 .801 .731
COTR1 .799 .762
INTE4 .817 .808
INTE6 .815 .841
INTE5 .775 .722
INTE3 .692 .645
ATDE2 .826 .768
ATDE4 .817 .760
ATDE5 .707 .722
ATDE1 .688 .526
NORM2 .882 .816
NORM3 .820 .723
NORM1 .810 .684
Total
Sum of square (eigenvalue) 7.599 2.129 1.849 1.080 12.657
% of variance 44.701 12.524 10.879 6.352 74.456
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COTRO perceived behavioral control, INTEN entrepreneurial intentions, ATTDE attitude toward entrepreneurship, SNORM subjective norms

This study continues to implement the CFA. Table 4 reveals that these four variables each have composite reliability greater than 0.7, and average variance extracted (AVE) greater than 0.5, with the square root of AVE (AVE) (seen in bold in Table 4) of each variable being greater than that of the remaining variables. The model fit criteria, for example, GFI, TLI, and CFI, are all greater than 0.9. In summary, the EFA and CFA tests conform to the guidelines (Hair et al., 2014) and are used in the structural equation model (SEM) to examine the above hypotheses.

Table 4.

The results of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA)

CR AVE MSV ATTDE COTRO INTEN SNORM
ATTDE 0.849 0.589 0.497 0.767
COTRO 0.932 0.696 0.402 0.527 0.834
INTEN 0.890 0.671 0.497 0.705 0.634 0.819
SNORM 0.788 0.558 0.121 0.348 0.289 0.347 0.747
CFA model fit criteria:
Chi-square (𝒳2): 317.016, Df: 113, p level: .000, GFI: 0.926, TLI: 0.956, CFI: 0.963, RMSEA: 0.061
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COTRO perceived behavioral control, INTEN entrepreneurial intentions, ATTDE attitude toward entrepreneurship, SNORM subjective norms. “Bold”: AVE

Results and Discussions

This study uses the SEM to examine the hypotheses, using direct and indirect pathways. Figure 3 and Table 5 presents the results of all the above hypotheses, that is, the effects of entrepreneurial education and financial knowledge on attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and entrepreneurial intentions. Control variables are presented in the last section.

Fig. 3.

Fig. 3

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The SEM results of the study. The SEM model fit criteria: chi-square (𝒳2): 602.738, Df: 194, p level: .000, GFI: 0.901, TLI: 0.902, CFI: 0.925, RMSEA: 0.066. Unstandardized coefficients between main variables at the 1%, 5% or 10% significance levels. Financial knowledge is significant in directly explaining entrepreneurial intentions, while entrepreneurial education is not. The model includes gender, age, years of study, majors, family business background

Table 5.

The results of the SEM model

Unstand estimate Stand estimate S.E C.R P Hs
Entrepreneurial education ENTEDU
INTEN  < –- ENTEDU 0.02 0.04 0.02 0.90 ns H1
ATTDE  < –- ENTEDU 0.07 0.13 0.03 2.70 *** H2
SNORM  < –- ENTEDU 0.07 0.10 0.04 2.05 ** H2
COTRO  < –- ENTEDU 0.28 0.33 0.04 7.13 *** H2
Financial knowledge FINKNO
INTEN  < –- FINKNO 0.24 0.08 0.12 1.96 ** H3
ATTDE  < –- FINKNO 0.27 0.11 0.13 2.06 ** H4
SNORM  < –- FINKNO 0.39 0.11 0.18 2.16 ** H4
COTRO  < –- FINKNO 0.34 0.08 0.20 1.71 * H4
INTEN  < –- ATTDE 0.69 0.58 0.08 9.18 ***
INTEN  < –- SNORM 0.05 0.06 0.03 1.49 ns
INTEN  < –- COTRO 0.25 0.35 0.03 7.77 ***
Control variables
ATTDE  < –- MALEd 0.07 0.06 0.06 1.12 ns
ATTDE  < –- MAJORfin  − 0.08  − 0.06 0.06  − 1.28 ns
ATTDE  < –- SENIOR  − 0.14  − 0.12 0.06  − 2.41 **
ATTDE  < –- BUSIfam 0.08 0.06 0.07 1.17 ns
SNORM  < –- MALEd  − 0.06  − 0.04 0.08  − 0.76 ns
SNORM  < –- MAJORfin  − 0.03  − 0.02 0.08  − 0.36 ns
SNORM  < –- SENIOR  − 0.06  − 0.04 0.08  − 0.68 ns
SNORM  < –- BUSIfam 0.10 0.05 0.09 1.08 ns
COTRO  < –- MALEd 0.29 0.14 0.09 3.10 ***
COTRO  < –- MAJORfin 0.02 0.01 0.09 0.21 ns
COTRO  < –- SENIOR 0.03 0.01 0.09 0.27 ns
COTRO  < –- BUSIfam 0.13 0.06 0.10 1.29 ns
INTEN  < –- MALEd 0.04 0.03 0.06 0.78 ns
INTEN  < –- MAJORfin  − 0.10  − 0.07 0.06  − 1.79 *
INTEN  < –- SENIOR 0.16 0.12 0.06 2.97 ***
INTEN  < –- BUSIfam  − 0.02  − 0.01 0.06  − 0.25 ns
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*p < 0.1; **p < 0.05; ***p < 0.01. ns non-significant level, FINKNO financial knowledge, ENTEDU entrepreneurial education; COTRO perceived behavioral control, INTEN entrepreneurial intentions, ATTDE attitude toward entrepreneurship, SNORM subjective norms, Un(stand.) un(standardized). MALEd is a dummy variable with 1 for male and 0 for female. MAJORfin is a dummy variable with 1 for major in accounting and finance. SENIOR is a dummy variable with 1 for fourth- and fifth-year or longer students. BUSIfam is a dummy variable with 1 if students have their family business background

Attitude Toward Entrepreneurship

This study first examines the relationships between entrepreneurial education, ENTEDU; financial knowledge, FINKNO; and attitude toward entrepreneurship, ATTDE. The results indicate that both entrepreneurial education and financial knowledge are significant in explaining attitude toward entrepreneurship after controlling for demographics. Namely, the coefficient between entrepreneurial education, financial knowledge, and attitudes toward entrepreneurship was 0.07 (p < 0.01) and 0.27 (p < 0.05), respectively, showing that higher levels of entrepreneurial education and financial knowledge lead to a more positive attitude toward entrepreneurship, supporting the corresponding H2 and H4.

It is evident that taking more entrepreneurial courses in the university and achieving higher scores in financial knowledge lead to a higher positive attitude toward entrepreneurship. This is likely because students with more entrepreneurial education and financial knowledge recognize more advantages than disadvantages when considering setting up a new business and desiring to follow an entrepreneurial career. This result is consistent with that of Liñán (2004), Frank et al. (2005), Boukamcha (2015), and Rauch and Hulsink (2015), that entrepreneurial education has a positive impact on attitude toward entrepreneurship. Regarding financial knowledge, our findings are also in line with prior studies (Amagir et al., 2018, 2020), which find that a higher level of financial knowledge leads to a more positive attitude toward money management.

Subjective Norm

The results for subjective norm, SNORM, show significant effects of entrepreneurial education and financial knowledge on subjective norm, consistent with our hypotheses. The coefficient between entrepreneurial education and subjective norms was 0.07 (p < 0.05), meaning that a one-unit increase in entrepreneurial education is associated with a 7% increase in subjective norm. The coefficient between financial knowledge and subjective norm is 0.39 (p < 0.05), showing that for each one-percentage increase in financial knowledge, subjective norm rises by 39%.

Subjective norm highlights the important role of “reference people” who are important to students in supporting their entrepreneurial decisions. Reference people are families, friends, and colleagues. We find that students with higher levels of entrepreneurial and financial knowledge tend to receive more support for their entrepreneurial ideas. Our findings are consistent with several studies (Hattab, 2014; Otache, 2019). Hattab (2014) examines the relationship between entrepreneurial education and perceived desirability (Shapero & Sokol, 1982) that is created by a combination of subjective norm and personal attitude and find a significant link between entrepreneurial education to the perceived desirability. As subjective norm is part of perceived desirability, the effect of entrepreneurial education on perceived desirability infers that entrepreneurial education also exerts a partial influence on the subjective norm. Otache (2019) suggests a conceptual framework including a relationship between entrepreneurial education and subjective norm. However, several studies do not find a direct effect of entrepreneurial education on subjective norm. For example, Rauch and Hulsink (2015) contend that entrepreneurial education is not directly affected by the beliefs of friends and families, and as a consequence, this factor is not included in the research model. Liñán (2004) and Passaro et al. (2018) do not find entrepreneurial education significant in accounting for the subjective norm. Solesvik (2013) report that entrepreneurial education does not directly affect subjective norm, but does affect indirectly through entrepreneurial motivation.

In summary, we find that both entrepreneurial education and financial knowledge have a significant impact on subjective norm. Students who participate in entrepreneurial and financial courses are capable of presenting to, and convincing, the important people about their start-up ideas. Notably, between financial knowledge and entrepreneurial education, financial knowledge has a stronger impact on subjective norm, implying that students who are financially literate obtain more approvals of their entrepreneurial intentions. It is apparent that general financial knowledge plays a substantial role in entrepreneurship.

Perceived Behavioral Control

Regarding the effect of entrepreneurial education and financial knowledge on perceived behavioral control, COTRO, in Table 5, the coefficient of 0.28 (p < 0.01) between entrepreneurial education and perceived behavioral control, and 0.34 (p < 0.1) between financial knowledge and perceived behavioral control propose that higher levels of entrepreneurial education and financial knowledge are associated with a higher level of perceived control, supporting H2 and H4.

Students with higher levels of perceived control are well-prepared for starting a new business (Liñán & Chen, 2009). They also have sound control of the creation process, understand the necessary practical details, and know how to develop an entrepreneurial project. In this study, we find that students who join more entrepreneurial courses and perform better in the financial knowledge test have better control of entrepreneurial activities. This result is consistent with previous studies (Boukamcha, 2015; Frank et al., 2005; Liñán, 2004). Entrepreneurial education has an influence on the personal attitude toward entrepreneurship, which is a component of perceived desirability (Liñán, 2004), entrepreneurial desirability (Boukamcha, 2015), and entrepreneurial orientations (Frank et al., 2005). In terms of financial knowledge, we also find that financial knowledge has a significant effect on perceived behavioral control, which is partly consistent with that of several existing studies (Amagir et al., 2020; Danes & Haberman, 2007), who find a significant relationship between financial knowledge and self-efficacy, a proxy for perceived behavioral control.

In short, while both entrepreneurial education and financial knowledge exhibit significant positive impacts on the three components attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control, financial knowledge shows relatively greater impacts, suggesting the vital role of financial knowledge in shaping entrepreneurial behavior.

Entrepreneurial Intentions

Table 5 also reports the results for H1 and H3, concerning the effects of entrepreneurial education and financial knowledge on entrepreneurial intentions, INTEN. Surprisingly, we find only financial knowledge has a significant effect on entrepreneurial intentions at 0.24 (p < 0.05), while entrepreneurial education does not. A higher level of financial knowledge results in a greater intention to start a new business venture, in support of H3. As entrepreneurial education does not significantly impact entrepreneurial intention, hypothesis H1 is not supported.

The result that students with better financial knowledge have greater intentions to start a new business is consistent with Ćumurović and Hyll (2019). However, the insignificant link between entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial intentions is inconsistent with that of previous studies (Galloway & Brown, 2002; Liñán, 2004; Nowiński et al., 2019), but similar to that of Passaro et al. (2018). A possible reason for this is perhaps because entrepreneurial courses in undergraduate program may be built based on a more educational approach (theoretical approach) than a market-oriented method (Passaro et al., 2017, 2018) and, consequently, entrepreneurial education is not adequate to impact the formation of entrepreneurial intentions. However, since entrepreneurial education may affect entrepreneurial intentions through three motivational factors, we further analyze in the “Entrepreneurial Education: Indirect Analysis” section of indirect effects.

Regarding the theory of planned behavior, we find that only attitude toward entrepreneurship and perceived behavioral control have a significant link to entrepreneurial intentions at 0.69 (p < 0.01) and 0.25 (p < 0.01), respectively. That is, students who have more positive attitudes and higher levels of perceived control tend to be entrepreneurs, which is similar to the results of Liñán and Chen (2009) and Passaro et al. (2018). However, we do not find that subjective norm significantly explain entrepreneurial intentions, which is similar to the findings of Rauch and Hulsink (2015), Iglesias-Sánchez et al. (2016), and Miranda et al. (2017). A possible reason for this is because the beliefs of friends and families are not as strong and influential as personal attitude and perceived control in determining a behavior (Rauch & Hulsink, 2015). Importantly, although subjective norm is not significant in inhibiting the formation of entrepreneurial intentions, it is worthwhile in providing positive motivation and support for the last phase of the decision (Iglesias-Sánchez et al., 2016). In general, our results indicate that if individuals hold more positive attitudes toward entrepreneurship and are higher in perceived control, they have a greater intention to start a new business.

Demographics

Table 5 indicates that three out of four demographic variables, MALEd (equal one for male students and zero for females), SENIOR (equal one for students in year 4 and above, and zero otherwise), and MAJORfin (equal one for students with accounting and finance major and zero for other majors), all have an effect on attitude toward entrepreneurship, perceived behavioral control, and entrepreneurial intentions. Business family background, BUSIfam, is not significant in explaining entrepreneurial intentions and three motivational factors.

In terms of the gender differences, the coefficient between MALEd and perceived behavioral control at 0.29 (p < 0.01) suggests that male students have a 29% higher perception of control over entrepreneurial activities than female students. This result is consistent with Liñán and Chen (2009) that males have higher level of perceived behavioral control than females. We find gender difference is not significantly accounting for entrepreneurial intentions, which is consistent with the finding of Chaudhary (2017). The coefficients of − 0.14 (p < 0.05) between academic seniority and attitude toward entrepreneurship, and 0.16 (p < 0.01) between academic seniority and entrepreneurial intentions suggest that senior students (fourth-year students or higher) are less likely to have attitude toward entrepreneurship but have more intentions to start up a new business than junior students (third-year students or lower). This is similar to the finding of İlhan Ertuna and Gurel (2011) that senior students have more entrepreneurial intentions than freshmen. In addition, because junior and senior university students correspond to their age, inferring that, entrepreneurial intentions increase with an increase in age. Senior students aged 23–24 may become nascent entrepreneurs after graduation, from 25 or older, which is consistent with Hart et al. (2020) that people aged 25–34 are most involved in early-stage entrepreneurial activity, compared with all other age groups. In general, while several studies do not find the effect of age on entrepreneurial intentions (Chaudhary, 2017; Liñán & Chen, 2009), we find senior students are more likely to intend to start up a new business venture.

As for academic major, we find a negative coefficient of − 0.10 (p < 0.1) between the accounting and finance dummy variable and entrepreneurial intentions, proposing that students majoring in accounting and finance tend to have less intention to start-up than students with other majors. This is slightly similar to the findings of Liñán (2004), İlhan Ertuna and Gurel (2011), Solesvik (2013), and Chaudhary (2017) that students studying business or management as formal courses display higher levels of entrepreneurial intentions than students who do not. Interestingly, Kuckertz and Wagner (2010) find that among those majoring in business, male students have less entrepreneurial intentions than female students. However, this result is inverse for those majoring in science and engineering where males have more entrepreneurial intentions than females.

In terms of family business background, we do not find the effect of business family background on entrepreneurial intentions. This result is inconsistent with the finding of Greene and Saridakis (2008), İlhan Ertuna and Gurel (2011), and Chaudhary (2017) that students with family self-employment backgrounds have more intentions to start up a new business venture.

Entrepreneurial Education: Indirect Analysis

This study employs the Hayes and Preacher’s approach (Hayes, 2017; Hayes & Preacher, 2010) to investigate the indirect impact of entrepreneurial education on entrepreneurial intentions through three motivational factors: attitudes toward entrepreneurship, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. According to Hayes and Preacher (2010) and Hayes (2017), the model, see Fig. 4, used to examine the indirect impact includes only one independent variable (denoted as X), one dependent (Y) variable and multiple mediators (M). We develop the model with entrepreneurial education (X), attitudes toward entrepreneurship (M1), subjective norms (M2) and perceived behavioral control (M3), and entrepreneurial intentions (Y).

Fig. 4.

Fig. 4

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The indirect impact of entrepreneurial education. Note. X: ENTEDU, entrepreneurial education; M1: ATTDE, attitudes toward entrepreneurship; M2: SNORM, subjective norms; M3: COTRO, perceived behavioral control; Y: INTEN, entrepreneurial intentions

Figure 4 and Table 6 indicate a significant indirect impact of entrepreneurial education on entrepreneurial intentions through attitude toward entrepreneurship and perceived behavioral control. Namely, the unstandardized coefficient of 0.05 (p < 0.05) in column (1) suggests that entrepreneurial education has a positive indirect effect on entrepreneurial intentions through attitude toward entrepreneurship. In column (3), the coefficient of 0.09 (p < 0.05) is for the mediating effect of perceived behavioral control. Subjective norm is not significant in mediating the effect of entrepreneurial education on entrepreneurial intentions. These results are consistent with prior studies (Boukamcha, 2015; Liñán, 2004; Passaro et al., 2018; Solesvik, 2013).

Table 6.

The indirect impact of entrepreneurial education

Y: INTEN Effect of X on Y via:
M1: ATTDE M2: SNORM M3:COTRO
(1) (2) (3)
X: ENTEDU 0.05 0.004 0.09
se 0.02 0.004 0.02
LLCI 0.008  − 0.002 0.06
ULCI 0.08 0.01 0.12
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ENTEDU entrepreneurial education, ATTDE attitudes toward entrepreneurship, SNORM subjective norms, COTRO perceived behavioral control, INTEN entrepreneurial intentions, LL(UL) CI: lower level (upper level) of confidence interval. “Bold”: unstandardized coefficients at the 5% significance level. No zero between LLCI and ULCI means a 5% significance level

Further Discussions

In this section, we provide a further discussion of financial knowledge as general knowledge and entrepreneurial education as specific knowledge. Knowledge imparted during education comprises domain-general and domain-specific information (Greiff et al., 2013). General knowledge can be applied to a wide variety of areas, while specific knowledge is only used for specific relevant domains (Tricot & Sweller, 2014). From this perspective, entrepreneurial education belongs to domain-specific knowledge, as it is only used for entrepreneurial activities, while basic financial knowledge belongs to domain-general knowledge due to this knowledge being absorbed by all undergraduates with majors in business, who are also potential entrepreneurs. Our results show that financial knowledge is significant in directly explaining entrepreneurial intentions but entrepreneurial education. This reconfirms the importance of financial knowledge in shaping entrepreneurial behavior, and that financial knowledge as general knowledge is crucial to all students regardless of their majors.

Conclusions, Implications, and Further Research

Conclusion and Implications

There is no doubt that knowledge plays a vital role in economic growth by improving productivity, motivating creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship. While the extant literature examines separately the effects of financial literacy (Ćumurović & Hyll, 2019) and entrepreneurial education (e.g., Boukamcha, 2015; Hattab, 2014; Passaro et al., 2018; Rauch & Hulsink, 2015) on entrepreneurship intentions, our study incorporates both the theory of human capital and the theory of planned behavior together in the same structural equation model. This not only helps us to understand the effects of financial literacy and entrepreneurial education but also the mediation roles played by the three motivational factors (attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control) on entrepreneurial intentions. Our results show that financial literacy is positively associated with entrepreneurial intentions and three motivational elements: attitude toward entrepreneurship, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control. Entrepreneurial education is not significant in directly explaining entrepreneurial intentions. However, entrepreneurial education has an indirect impact on entrepreneurial intentions through attitude toward entrepreneurship and perceived behavior control. Our hypotheses are generally supported, except hypothesis 1 regarding the association between entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial intentions. This study also finds that male students have a higher perception of control of entrepreneurial activities than female students. Senior students have a less positive attitude but more intentions to start-ups. Majors in finance and accounting have less entrepreneurial intentions than other majors.

Our results have several policy implications. The extant literature (Hart et al., 2020; Ruiu & Breschi, 2019) has shown that early-stage entrepreneurial activities are largely focusing on the age ranges of 18–24 and 25–35, and that young adults can become nascent entrepreneurs even when they are students in college and university. Our study focuses on college students, as they will enter labor market soon and become potential entrepreneurs, and are to provide policy makers with factors that could drive entrepreneurial intentions among these young individuals. According to Reynolds et al. (2005), Acs et al. (2008), and Ben Slimane and M’henni (2020), entrepreneurship is formed based on opportunity and necessity. Individuals desire to be entrepreneurs because they pursue perceived business opportunities, referring to as opportunity-based entrepreneurship. It is also because they cannot find a suitable role in the world of work, and as a result, creating business is their best available option, which is referred to as necessity-based entrepreneurs. Acs et al. (2008) asserts that entrepreneurs in low-income economies are more motivated by necessity than those in high-income economies due to a lack of better options that create stable revenue. Entrepreneurship is also dependent on specific characteristics of each country, local culture, perceptions, and social behavior toward entrepreneurship (Ben Slimane and M'henni, 2020). For example, Estrin et al. (2018) finds that in some East and South Asian countries, for example, among South Korea, Thailand, and India, entrepreneurs in India are more likely to be motivated by necessity than by opportunity because they have no better choice to earn a steady income to survive. Therefore, an understanding of individuals’ entrepreneurship motivation will help policymakers have more appropriate policies, reducing failure levels in start-ups and contributing to economic growth.

Second, for educators, it is evident that entrepreneurial education and financial knowledge are contributors to intentions to set up a new venture. However, when asked “how much time during your university studies was devoted to studying entrepreneurship?,” 84% of students answered “(very) little time.” Clearly, entrepreneurship knowledge has received little attention in universities and the higher education system in Vietnam. Therefore, it is urgent for educators and policymakers to prudently consider the reality of entrepreneurship knowledge and have appropriate policies to develop more entrepreneurial programs in colleges and universities. Moreover, it also needs more activities outside the classroom, including workshops, seminars, talk shows, and contests, to equip students with entrepreneurship skills. This helps students acquire knowledge through theory combined with practice, and is confirmed by the findings of Passaro et al., (2017, 2018) that entrepreneurial programs should follow a more market-oriented approach.

Regarding financial knowledge, students who perform higher in financial knowledge tend to be entrepreneurs. It is certain that financial knowledge not only reduces the financial risks (Bönte & Filipiak, 2012; Lusardi & Mitchell, 2007, 2008; Van Rooij et al., 2011) but also increases entrepreneurial intentions. Importantly, financial knowledge has a stronger impact on entrepreneurial intentions than entrepreneurial education, supporting our argument that financial knowledge as general knowledge is an essential aspect of learning for university students with any study majors. However, we find that 42% of the study participants achieved financial knowledge scores lower than the average. Female students generally perform lower in financial knowledge than male students (see Fig. 1), which is in line with the findings of Bottazzi and Lusardi (2020), Klapper and Lusardi (2020), and Lusardi et al. (2010). As a result, parents and educators need to encourage and motivate students, particularly female students, to study more financial courses.

In addition, students with more positive attitudes toward entrepreneurship and with a higher perception of control of entrepreneurial activities also tend to be entrepreneurs. This provides a better understanding of the importance of positive attitude and perceived control in entrepreneurial activities. Nevertheless, students only hold a moderate perception of control of starting up a new business (see Table 1). When presented with the statement “I know how to develop an entrepreneurial project,” only 31% of the students rated themselves as “agreed and totally agreed,” and when presented with the statement “I am prepared to start a viable firm” only 29% agreed with this statement. This suggests that the majority of students have low confidence in their abilities to start up a new business venture. Hence, parents and educators should stimulate students to be more confident in entrepreneurial activities. The universities need to have more training courses in the skills of problem-solving, critical thinking, public speaking, and presentation skills, which make students more successful in entrepreneurship.

For gender differences, female students, in general, are not as good as male students in terms of financial knowledge performance, and are not as confident as male students in relation to entrepreneurial activities. Hence, educators and parents (particularly mothers) need to instigate more interventions to encourage young female adults to study financial courses and participate in entrepreneurship courses.

Limitations and Future Research

This study has the following limitations. We find some factors that are not significant in explaining entrepreneurial intentions. The first of these is entrepreneurial education. Although we find a significant indirect impact of entrepreneurial education on entrepreneurial intentions through attitude and perceived control, we call for further research on the direct effect of this factor, as previous studies do find this effect (Galloway & Brown, 2002; Liñán, 2004; Nowiński et al., 2019). The second factor is subjective norm that is not significant in explaining entrepreneurial intentions. Despite our results being consistent with prior studies (Liñán & Chen, 2009; Passaro et al., 2018), further research on this aspect is required to examine if this result is sensitive to different samples due to age, culture, or geographical locations. The third insignificant finding is that gender roles explain neither attitude toward entrepreneurship nor entrepreneurial intentions. This hinders this study from confirming who, male or female, has more positive attitude toward entrepreneurship, and whether or not male students have more intentions to start up a new firm. Meanwhile, prior studies (Abbasianchavari & Moritz, 2021; Liñán, 2004) do show that entrepreneurial activity is known as a male-dominated domain. As a result, further research should re-examine this factor. Prior studies (Chaudhary, 2017; Greene & Saridakis, 2008; İlhan Ertuna & Gurel, 2011) find that students with a business family background are more likely to choose to establish start-ups. However, the result that our business family background does not affect any factors in TPB may require further investigation. Given that our survey was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, a natural question is whether any psychological factors associated with the pandemic may interfere with the students’ answers to the questions. A follow-up study may be of interest in the future. Finally, while our study focuses on a sample of Vietnamese students, we believe that the model we develop in this paper can be applied and evaluated in other countries to examine the economically essential relationships between financial knowledge, entrepreneurial education, and entrepreneurial intentions.

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our thanks to editors and reviewers.

Funding

This study is partly funded by University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City (UEH), Vietnam.

Data Availability

The dataset generated during the current study are available from the corresponding author at reasonable request.

Declarations

Ethics Declarations

We, the authors, declare that this is our original research.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no competing interests.

Footnotes

8

Communality is defined as “total amount of variance an original variable shares with all other variables included in the analysis” (Hair et al., 2014, 90).

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Contributor Information

Quoc N. Tran, Email: quoc.tran@umt.edu.vn

Trang M. T. Phung, Email: trang.phungthaiminh@hoasen.edu.vn

Nhut H. Nguyen, Email: nhut.nguyen@aut.ac.nz

Tho H. Nguyen, Email: thonh@ueh.edu.vn

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Associated Data

This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.

Data Availability Statement

The dataset generated during the current study are available from the corresponding author at reasonable request.

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