the impact of achievement motivation on the international
TRANSCRIPT
THE IMPACT OF ACHIEVEMENT
MOTIVATION ON THE INTERNATIONAL
PERFORMANCE OF BELGIAN SMES
Word count: < 12.047 >
Anouk Naudts Student number: 000150726276
Promotor: Prof. Dr. Hendrik Slabbinck
Co-Promotor: Radityo Handrito
Master’s Dissertation submitted to obtain the degree of:
Master in Business Economics: Corporate Finance
Academic year: 2018-2019
II
Confidentiality agreement
PERMISSION
Ondergetekende verklaart dat de inhoud van deze masterproef mag geraadpleegd en/of gereproduceerd worden,
mits bronvermelding.
I declare that the content of this Master’s Dissertation may be consulted and/or reproduced, provided that the
source is referenced.
Naam student/name student :………………………………………………………………………………………………
Handtekening/signature
III
Acknowledgements
This study would not have been possible without the support and encouragement of many individuals, that have
helped me along this journey.
First of all, I would like to thank Prof. Hendrik Slabbinck and my Co-promotor Radityo Handrito for the great
guidance. For all the advice, discussions and ideas. Also for the prompt responses and the critical reviews.
Furthermore, I would like to express my gratitude to all the interviewed business owner who were likely to make
some time available and for sharing their knowledge with me.
Finally I also want to thank my dad for paying the gasoline and tremendous phone calls to get in touch with the
respondents. My brother, for being my personal editor-in-chief. And eventually also my friends for encouraging and
supporting me.
IV
Abstract
This paper investigated the relationship between the personality of the entrepreneur and the international performance
of his/her company. This research was drawn upon the theoretical framework of McClelland’s’ motivation theory. In
particular, the relationship between the implicit achievement motivation of the entrepreneur on internationalization has
been examined. It was expected that an entrepreneur with a high level of achievement would positively influence the
international performance of the company. Furthermore, a possible moderating effect of gender differences have been
examined. To test the proposed hypotheses, data was collected from 69 SMEs in Belgium. Results show that there seems
to be no significant relation between need for achievement and international performance. Furthermore, the role of
gender to influence this relationship seems to be negligible. Possible explanations for these peculiar findings are
mentioned and call for further investigation.
V
Table of content Master’s Dissertation submitted to obtain the degree of:.................................................................................I
Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................................................III
Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................... IV
1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................1
2. Literature review and hypothesis.....................................................................................................................4
Internationalization .......................................................................................................................................4
Personality ...................................................................................................................................................6
Implicit and explicit motives ..........................................................................................................................8
Achievement motivation ................................................................................................................................9
Gender .......................................................................................................................................................11
Hypothesis Formulation ...............................................................................................................................12
3. Methodology ..............................................................................................................................................14
Sample .......................................................................................................................................................14
Data collection ............................................................................................................................................15
Variables and measures................................................................................................................................16
4. Analysis and results .....................................................................................................................................18
Descriptives ................................................................................................................................................19
Hypotheses testing ......................................................................................................................................19
5. Discussion and further research ....................................................................................................................21
6. Conclusion and future research .....................................................................................................................23
Appendix A ...................................................................................................................................................25
Descripive statistics ..................................................................................................................................33
Hypotheses testing ...................................................................................................................................35
Model summary ....................................................................................................................................35
Anova ....................................................................................................................................................35
Coefficients ...........................................................................................................................................36
VI
Abrivations
CEO Chief executive officer
FOD Federale Overheidsdienst
GDP Gross Domestic Product
IO International Entrepreneurship
OMT Operant Motive Test
PRF Personality Research Form
RBT resource-based theory
RBV Resource Based View
SBA Small Business Act for Europe
SMEs Small and medium-sized enterprises
TAT Thematic Apperception Test
VBO Verbond van Belgische Ondernemingen
WTO World Trade Organization
1
1. Introduction
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are vital actors across the world. They make up 99,8%
of the total number of businesses in the entire European Union (Eurostat). They are responsible for
large contributions to value added and employment. This certainly applies to Belgium. In 2017, only
0,01% of the Belgian companies are not SMEs (Small Business Act for Europe (SBA),
2018). SMEs provide the majority of jobs and create the biggest proportion of value added,
according to statistics. In general, SMEs are considered as the backbone of our economy.
The majority of SMEs have simple systems and procedures. Compared to larger companies, they
require more flexibility, fast feedback, a short decision-making chain, better understanding and a
quick response to the customer (Singh et al., 2008). Despite these supportive characteristics of
SMEs, they are under enormous pressure to maintain their competitiveness in the domestic markets.
Because the world trade is growing around 1.5 times faster than global Gross Domestic Product
(GDP), and due to the expansion of telecommunications and information technologies, the
increasing capital flows and the interdependence of financial markets, globalization is very common
(VBO, 2017). This results in a strong international integration of the value chain, where national
borders are no longer considered as the frame of reference as stated by ‘Het Verbond van Belgische
Ondernemingen’ (VBO, 2017). Globalization of economy and excessive competition force
businesses to look for new ways to sustain their competitiveness (Kubíčková, Votoupalová, &
Toulová, 2014) Internationalization is often perceived as a key to cope with this. The ability of
SMEs to involve in the internationalization process is an commonly discussed topic. This certainly
applies in a small country such as Belgium, where cross-border activity is often a necessity – given
the limited domestic market size (De Clercq, Sapienza, & Crijns, 2005). According to figures of the
World Trade Organization (WTO), Belgium remained the 11th largest exporter of goods worldwide
in 2017. To further stress the importance of export in Belgium, figures confirm that Belgian exports
of goods and services represent 87,9% of their GDP (Eurostat, 2018). This is almost twice as much
as the eurozone average of 46,2 In short, in the Belgian industry, export is not a luxury but a matter
of survival, regardless of all the international activities that are already established.
2
Today, international business is an indispensable condition for SMEs to grow. The European
Commission (2014) notes that SMEs that open up to foreign countries create more jobs and are more
innovative than SMEs that stay within national borders. Hence, extra attention is paid to the
internationalization of SMEs and this issue is relevant for further investigation.
The increasing importance of SMEs in international markets has led to substantial research. Previous
studies approve that small international firms tend to grow faster than firms which are mainly
operating on a domestic market (Lu & Beamish, 2006). The international business is well
developed. In recent years there has been increasing attention in the behavior of the entrepreneur,
opening up the field of international entrepreneurship (McDougall & Oviatt, 2000). Suggesting that
entrepreneurial characteristics, such as innovative, proactive and risk-taking behavior (Shan, Song,
& Ju, 2016), play a part in internationalization. This is confirmed by Omri & Becuwe (2014), who
state that the internationalization of SMEs could be mostly influenced by the decision-makers’
characteristics. This builds on the Resource Based View (RBV) theory, where managerial
characteristics are recognized as corporate assets and a determining factor of the firm’s presence on
domestic and foreign markets (Herron & Robinson, 1993). This especially applies to SMEs. The
decision-making power is often concentrated in the hands of only one person, or a few (Andersson
& Florén, 2011). Therefore, their decisions have a considerable impact on the outcome. By means
of their characteristics, successful and less successful managers in international companies can be
distinguished from each other according to previous literature (Andersson & Florén, 2011;
Bloodgood et al. 1996; Kuemmerle 2002).
This study answers the call of other works to put more emphasis on the entrepreneur. This is a
response to Omri and Becuwe, who articulated that "future research should consider the use of
qualitative methodology in order to detect the most influential chraracteristc on the level of intended
exports in the context of SMEs" (2014, p. 35 ). The paper contributes to the existing research by
integrating conceptions of the personality of the entrepreneur into the body of international
entrepreneurship. This is carried out by looking at the cognitive processes within individuals through
the disciplinary lenses of applied psychology. To investigate the effect of personality on
international performance, McClellands’ motivation needs theory has been selected as the
3
theoretical framework. This theory covers dealing with the specific needs that motivate and direct
human behavior (Schultz D., Schultz S.E., 2014). More specifically, in this study the emphasis is
on the ‘Need for Achievement’, since it is a strong concept in entrepreneurial processes (Shane,
Locke, & Collins, 2003).
In this research, the individual motivation is associated with international performance by bridging
concepts and theories drawn from the entrepreneurship, applied psychology, and international
business literature. At the intersection of the international business and entrepreneurial disciplines,
the field of International Entrepreneurship is already established (McDougall & Oviatt, 2000). On
the other side, linkages between entrepreneurship and applied psychology are elaborated (Locke,
Collins, & Hanges, 2004). However, research rooted in internationalization and applied psychology
has evolved independently. When you delve into literature, it becomes clear that it is teeming with
studies about internationalization. On the other hand, psychological theories explaining performance
trough motivation and behavior of the individual are widespread. Despite the extensive research on
these subjects, the link between psychological theories and internationalization is missing. To fill
this gap, the present paper contributes to this line of research by investigating the impact of
psychological models, more specifically Need for Achievement, to determine the international
performance. This brings us to the following research question: What is the relationship between
international performance and need for achievement of managers/entrepreneurs in Belgian SME’s
based on the theory of McClelland?
Furthermore, recently woman have made considerable contributions to innovation, employment and
entrepreneurial activities (Brush, de Bruin, & Welter, 2009). According to the most recent statistics,
32.9% of the Belgian self-employed were women in 2017 (FOD Economie, 2018). Female
entrepreneurship is therefore on the rise, as can be deduced from an increase of 3.7% compared to
the previous year. However, despite the rise of interest, literature is mixed about the relationship
between gender and achievement motivation. Nevertheless, argued by Hyde, this relationship seems
to be non-significant (2004). On the other hand, recent studies indicate that female gender seems to
have a negative influence on the expected level of export (Evald, Klyver, & Christensen, 2011;
Orser, Spence, Riding, & Carrington, 2010). In order to include the increasing importance of female
4
emancipation in this research, it is being examined whether gender could play a role in the
relationship between achievement and international performance.
This idea has been tested on a sample of 70 Belgian SMEs which operate in different industries.
These companies are internationally active or at least have intentions to go abroad. The remainder
of this paper is organized as follows: first, the existing knowledge from the different fields are
explored in the literature review. This is supplemented by the construction of theoretically grounded
hypotheses and the conceptual framework. Next, the employed methods are outlined and discussed,
as well as the studied variables. Thereafter, the analysis is made and results are examined.
Subsequently, these result are discussed and possible explanations are given. To end this paper,
limitations are addressed and conclusions are drawn to spur future research.
2. Literature review and hypothesis
In this section of the study, the existing literature is presented. First, the main findings will be
introduced. Next, the discoveries of the literature lead to the construction of the hypotheses that will
be investigated in this study.
Internationalization
Due to the globalizing trends and technological evolutions, international trade has been facilitated
for many SMEs. A single domestic market may be not large enough to exploit all the capabilities
that a firm could offer with his specific assets (Bloodgood, 1996). For this reason,
internationalization is considered an important growth strategy that can ensure the expansion of the
business activities by entering new geographical markets (Golovko & Valentini, 2011).
Internationalization enables firms to realize economies of scale (Caves, 1996), increase market
power, enrich managerial skills, and add value (Leonidou, Katsikeas, Palihawadana, &
Spyropoulou, 2007; Lu & Beamish, 2006). However, this is not without costs and uncertainties
(Contractor, Kumar, & Kundu, 2007): SMEs still face many challenges in their internationalization
process. Compared to large firms, SMEs have fewer resources at their disposal. Limited resources
used to be a major barrier in the past (Andersson & Florén, 2011). According to previous literature,
these resource inadequacies could be partially compensated by human capital (Manolova, Brush,
5
Edelman, & Greene, 2002). They argue that the personal factors of the manager may contribute to
a potential “differential advantage” (2002, p. 10), since the manager has the ability to combine and
recombine resources in order to create added value and competitive advantages (Peiris, Akoorie, &
Sinha, 2012). Furthermore, managers in SMEs are often the central decision-makers given to the
fact that in small firms the decision power is concentrated in the hands of only one or a few
individuals (Andersson & Florén, 2011). In the Belgian context, this is further reinforced by the fact
that Belgian firms operate in a moderate high power distance culture (Hofstede, 2001), centralizing
the decision-making activities in the hands of the manager (Hsu, Chen, & Cheng, 2013). The unique
resource base that a company owns and the key role of the entrepreneur in it, brings us to the
Resource-Based View (RBV) theory. The now labeled resource-based theory (RBT) (Barney,
Ketchen, & Wright, 2011), identifies a firm as a unique set of resources, both intangible and tangible,
that are critical to achieve success in the marketplace (Peiris et al., 2012). These resources are
relevant, unique, inimitable, and specific contributing to a firm’s distinct strengths vis-à-vis
competitors (Barney, 1991). This results in a competitive advantage in the home market as well as
abroad (Peng, 2001; Prange & Pinho, 2017). Furthermore, the manager (the human 'resources'
within a company) can be considered as a corporate asset and a decisive factor of presence on
domestic and foreign markets as argued by Omri and Becuwe (2014). Theoretical perspective of the
RTB leads us to the understanding of International Entrepreneurship (IO) (Peiris et al., 2012; Peng,
2001).
International Entrepreneurship is addresses the increasing interest in the entrepreneur in the
international business literature. The researchers McDougall and Oviatt (2000) identified IO as a
subfield of literature that is positioned at the interface of the international business and
entrepreneurship studies. They included entrepreneurial theory in the research around firm’s
internationalization where they involve the manager in explaining the international development.
International entrepreneurship is defined as follows by McDougall and Oviatt (2000, p.903):
“International entrepreneurship is a combination of innovative, proactive and risk-seeking
behavior that crosses national borders and is intended to create value in organizations.”
The introduction of IO has induced many researchers for further investigation. This yielded in
several studies which conclude that the manager definitely has an influence on the international
development of an SME. For example, a recent study by Hsu et al. (2013) stated that the
characteristics of CEOs should be taken into account in order to understand the performance gap
6
between internationalized SMEs. In the interim, a vast body of research is developed about the
characteristics of managers. Demographic characteristics such as age, education level, experience,
religion and also business skills, international orientation, innovative behavior and managerial
behavior have already been examined (e.g. Andersson & Florén, 2011; Hsu et al., 2013; Manolova
et al., 2002; Omri & Becuwe, 2014). Moreover, researchers have also investigated personal and
organizational drivers (Prange & Pinho, 2017) as well as motives for the internationalization of
SMEs (Kubíčková et al., 2014). So far, the focus of these studies has been on external motivations
such as the increase of sales through foreign demand or on the characteristics of the decision-maker.
Moreover, in most cases, these analyses are still conducted on the firm level which ignores
individual differences among managers (Andersson & Florén, 2011). However, in the present study
the aim is to examine the intrinsic motivations of an entrepreneur, in which in-depth psychological
motives are therefore investigated (Hessels, Van Gelderen, & Thurik, 2008).
Personality
To look more deeply at the manager as an individual, the personality of managers himself is involved
in order to be able to examine the international performance. Inasmuch as the focus is on the
individual, we find ourselves in the realm of psychology. Personality psychologists contended that
personality has to be described primarily by both personality characteristics (or traits) and
motivational dispositions (or motives)(Slabbinck et al., 2018; Winter, Stewart, John, Klohnen, &
Duncan, 1998).
Personality traits is a concept that has not been universally defined in recent years. As Goldberg
concluded in (1994), the concept of characteristics can be regarded as a "fictitious classification"
(p.128). The most accepted taxonomy of traits, is the well known Big Five classification (Barrick,
Mount, & Judge, 2001). Traits and motives have already been used in different contexts with
different notions. Generally speaking, traits are more about how people ‘actually’ think, feel and
behave which can distinguish people from each other (Borghans, Duckworth, Heckman, & Ter
Weel, 2008; Roberts, Harms, Smith, Wood, & Webb, 2007). A meta-analytic review by Zhao,
Seibert and Lumpkin (2010) demonstrated that personality constructs are able to enhance our
understanding of entrepreneurial processes. This paper looks at the personality of the manager with
the focal point of motives and is therefore different from previous studies.
7
Motives, on the other side, is more about how people 'want' to think, feel and behave (Borghans et
al., 2008; Roberts et al., 2007). It points to the wishes and desires of people (Winter et al., 1998),
the “why” of behavior according to McClelland (1985b, p.4). Motives and personal characteristics
are therefore considered as two different concepts, both channeling behavioral expressions. In this
theory, traits play the role of descriptive units, the consistent factor accounting for a habitual pattern
behavior (Emmons, 1989), whereas, motives take the role of inconsistencies and explain irrational
changes in behavior (McClelland, 1985a, 1985b).
Henry Murray is well-known as one of the principal American architects that developed a broad
framework for the description and analysis of personality which dates back to 1938 (Winter,
Stewart, John, Klohnen, & Duncan, 1998). Since the early 1950s his work towards the motivational
perspective has been further developed by David McClelland and his colleagues (Stewart & Roth,
2007). Together they formulated a theory of human motivation. This theory concentrated on the
motivational potency of specific defined needs (Steers, Mowday, & Shapiro, 2010). McClelland
distinguishes three types of human needs that are important to understand motivation. Need for
achievement (N-Ach) – the desire to strive for success in compliance with a standard of excellence;
need for affiliation (N-Aff) – the desire for physical and communicative closeness and maintenance
of interpersonal relationships; and need for power (N-pow) – the need to have influence over others
and dominate them (Kuhl & Scheffer, 1999). These three needs are then translated into motivations
that are supposed to stimulate individual behavior in certain situations. Every individual portrays
these three, often competing, motivating drivers that serve to energize behavior when they get
activated (Steers et al., 2010). However, since every person is different, the importance of each of
these needs varies across individuals (Lilly, Duffy, & Virick, 2006). Individuals differ from each
other to the extent that they set different priorities from these needs. These differing priorities are a
function of differences in early childhood learning. These differences in turn explain variations in
sensitivity to certain stimuli, which results in differences in behavior (Kuhl & Scheffer, 1999;
Schüler, Sheldon, & Fröhlich, 2010; Schultheiss & Hale, 2007).
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Implicit and explicit motives
In addition to the two essential elements of personality (traits and motivations), a review of research
of Mcclelland, Koestner, and Weinberger (1989) indicated that there is a distinction between
implicit and explicit motivational dispositions. These two systems stimulate, direct and predict
human behavior (Back, Schmukle, & Egloff, 2009; Dietl, Meurs, & Blickle, 2017), but are different
to some extent since early research (deCharms, Morrison, Reitman, & McClelland, 1955) has
demonstrated that the scorings of both implicit and explicit systems of the same motivational need
fail to correlate (Köllner & Schultheiss, 2014; Mcclelland et al., 1989). Therefore, it is surmised that
behavior is energized by two distinct types of personality systems (Slabbinck et al., 2018).
Explicit motives involve self-attributed needs that people can articulate consciously and are built
upon the individual’s self-concept (Brunstein & Schmitt, 2004; Mcclelland et al., 1989). Since the
explicit system operates at a conscious level, explicit motives can be assessed in questionnaires
based on self-reports. For instance, the Personality Research Form (PRF) from Jackson (1971) is
commonly used (Slabbinck et al., 2018).
Implicit motives, on the other hand, refer to unconscious needs that people are unaware of and are
built upon idealized self-conceptions. Since these motives operate outside a person’s conscious
awareness, they are only measurable by indirect means (Winter et al., 1998). The traditional measure
was developed in the time of Murray and McClleland, around 1930 and years later, namely the
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). This is a projective technique based on content analysis of
stories which are made up by participants about a series of vague or ambiguous pictures (Stewart &
Roth, 2007). With all projective techniques, it is assumed that “humans tend to interpret ambiguous
social situations according to our prior experience and current needs” (Murray, 1943, p.1), indicating
that people project their own motivations and interests in how they interpret situations onto the
images presented to them (Kuhl & Scheffer, 1999; Mednick & Thomas, 2014). In this way, stories
can be analyzed to reveal the underlying needs of the participant (Slabbinck et al., 2018). However,
the past years the TAT technique has received criticism for low reliability and validity(Eagly &
Johnson, 1990; Tuerlinckx et al., 2002). Besides that, the technique is also considered very time
consuming for the participants and coders. This leads to distortions to produce a coherent, logical
story and a limited number of stories due to fatigue (Kuhl & Scheffer, 1999).
9
In general, explicit motivations predict immediate and short term behavior that is subject to
awareness, whereas implicit motives predict spontaneous automatic long term behavior for
searching certain incentives or avoiding certain discouragements, without a great deal of deliberate
thought (Brunstein & Schmitt, 2004; Köllner & Schultheiss, 2014; Mcclelland et al., 1989;
Slabbinck et al., 2018).
In this research, the implicit motives of managers are examined. This focus is because business
operations are assumed to continue in the future, adopting the hypothesis of going concern. This is
certainly true in the case of an internationalization process that takes time to develop, to reach certain
milestones and being able to remain sustainable (De Clercq, Sapienza, & Crijns, 2005). Therefore a
long term orientation is the most applicable. Besides this fact, many aspects of business success lean
to be linked to implicit motives (Slabbinck et al., 2018).
Achievement motivation
When we want to relate personal implicit motivation to performance, need for achievement stands
out. The need for achievement is a stable, enduring motivational disposition which favors
affectively-rewarding experiences that relate to the improvement of someone’s performance (Pang,
2010). The motive have been associated with the behavior of an individual that puts effort into a
task in order to achieve a personal standard of excellence (McClelland, Atkinson, Clark, & Lowell,
1953). In general terms, achievement-motivated people, are people who are looking for challenges
and like to excel one’s self. They want to be part of an environment where they get responsibility
and get continuous recognition and feedback on their performances. They are characterized by
taking moderated risk. Instead of major risks, they take calculated risks in such a way that they can
accept a challenge which is feasible and from which they get their satisfaction if they succeed
(Schultz D., Schultz S.E., 2014). A high level of need for achievement is associated with the desires
and wishes to do well in order to realize a feeling of achievement. As argued by McClelland and his
colleagues (McClelland, Clark, Roby, & Atkinson (1958), cited by Collins, Hanges and Locke,
2004, p. 96):
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“High N-Ach people are more likely than low N-Ach people to engage in energetic and innovative
activities that require planning for the future and entail an individual’s responsibility for task
outcomes”
Due to these interesting behavioral criteria in competent relevant processes, this achievement
motivation has a long history. Furthermore, this theory is easily applicable to several domains
(Elliott, Shell, Henry, & Maier, 2005). As a result, several studies have been carried out that apply
the framework of McClellands’ achievement motivation, for instance, in the field of Industrial-
organizational psychology that relates an individuals’ motivation (employee) to job performance
(Lang, Zettler, Ewen, & Hülsheger, 2012). Also, other fields use this framework to link it with
performance, such as educational performance (Adsul & Kamble, 2008), in sports (Gröpel, Wegner,
& Schüler, 2016) and clinical competence (Nayeri & Jafarpour, 2014). But most importantly, is the
relation between achievement motivation and entrepreneurship. McClelland (1961) concluded that
the economic growth of societies can be related to the level of need for achievement amongst
citizens. Countries where people had a high level of need for achievement showed more
entrepreneurial activity and economic growth than countries with a lower mean of achievement
motivation. Thus Thus, he discovered that differences in achievement motivation explained the
economic wealth of nations. McClelland (1961) further argued that these behavioral criteria match
with the needed characteristics in entrepreneurial positions. In this way entrepreneurs should differ
in the hierarchal ordering of the distinct motive dispositions (need for achievement, need for
affiliation, and need for power) prioritizing the achievement motive in contrast with other people
that might be more attracted to types of positions that do not involve management in a business
setting (Langan‐Fox & Roth, 1995; Locke et al., 2004). Therefore, he connected the concept of
achievement motivation to economic development and entrepreneurship, which shifted the interest
to the level of the individual business owner (Baum, Frese, & Baron, 2014). Although, credibility
was compromised when researchers failed to replicate the significance of McClelland’s results (e.g.
Frey, 1984; Johnson, 1990). Eventually, after a bit of muddled empirical evidence, the findings of
McClelland were confirmed by Collins et al. (2004), who showed that, achievement motivation is
significantly correlated with entrepreneurial career choice and – most importantly – with
entrepreneurial performance. This Indicates that achievement motivation could discriminate
between successful and non-successful entrepreneurs.
11
Gender
In recent years, a striking increase in the number of female entrepreneurs have been observed.
Regardless of this growing importance of woman, the woman remained understudied for many
years. Nevertheless, since the 1980s studies began to analyze the woman in business contexts.
Sundry researches have been conducted to understand the differences between female and male
entrepreneurs. In this respect, the focus is mainly on differences in experiences (Verheul & Thurik,
2001), the impact of the family context and the household (Brush et al., 2009; Demartino & Barbato,
2003), motivations and barriers to start and maintain entrepreneurial activities (Huarng, Mas-Tur,
& Yu, 2012; Rey-Martí, Tur Porcar, & Mas-Tur, 2015), personality traits (Zhang et al., 2009) and
so on. In other words, many studies investigated external factors that are related to female business
owners.
The originators of the achievement motivation theory have not really paid attention to the gender
aspect in the early years (Mednick & Thomas, 2014). Regardless of the fact that empirical research
was mainly done at male institutions that time, researchers believed that achievement was only
important for the man. Hoffman (1972) presumed that woman are motivated by the desire for
approval from other people and social concerns instead of achievement motivation. As a
consequence, most of the research on psychological analysis of entrepreneurs has been conducted
with men (Langan‐Fox & Roth, 1995). Several years after the development of the achievement
motivation theory, research by Langan‐Fox and Roth (1995) included a sample of female
entrepreneurs and assessed the dimensions of personality within the theoretical framework of
McClelland together with other influencing variables on the motivations of entrepreneurs. This
revealed that there are three psychological types of entrepreneurs. Namely, the managerial
entrepreneur, the pragmatic entrepreneur and the need achiever entrepreneur. They concluded that
moderated levels of the motivational dispositions, as argued by McClelland, were found in the
sample. This suggests, as stated in the literature, that these motivational dispositions stimulate the
individual to become an entrepreneur and endow him or her with fundamental organizational and
managerial abilities. Conversely, Hansemark (2003) investigated the impact of need for
achievement using a longitudinal design with both females and males. This resulted in statistical
insignificant results for females as well as for men, concluding that need for achievement failed at
12
predicting entrepreneurship. However, these studies are mainly situated in the literature on
educational research (Adsul & Kamble, 2008; Pajares & Valiente, 2001). Findings from studies of
achievement motivation in the woman seem to be mixed. Eventually, Hyde (2004) concluded that
there should be no difference between male or female in the level of achievement.
With regard to internationalization, female business owners represent still a relatively small
population (Welch, Welch, & Hewerdine, 2008). This could potentially render statistical
inconvenience. An example of this is the study of Westhead, Wright and Ucbasaran (2001) who
conducted a longitudinal research and tested if female entrepreneurs are less likely to be exporters;
but no statistically significance could be found. Other research suggest that females are less
interested in exporting (Grondin & Schaefer, 1995). Besides a large-scale empirical study from
Orser et al. (2010) concluded that there are gender differences in export propensity. This study built
upon feminist perspectives and noted that in comparison with male-owned firms, female-owned
businesses were less likely to export. Furthermore, a study conducted by (Evald et al., 2011)
indicates that being a female entrepreneur influences export intentions. Moreover, it is statistically
significant demonstrated that a female entrepreneur has a negative expected level of export.
Moreover, a recent study from (Alves, Galina, Macini, Cagica Carvalho, & Costa, 2017) points out
that female entrepreneurs are not competitive in terms of internationalization.
Hypothesis Formulation
Where international business activities appeared to exclusively investigate large firms, this seems
to be rectified by the entrance of international entrepreneurship (McDougall & Oviatt, 2000; Peng,
2001). Hence, internationalization is considered as an entrepreneurial activity. The general belief is
that firms with an entrepreneurial orientation will perform organizationally better than those firms
who do not embrace this orientation (Shan, Song, & Ju, 2016). In an SME, the manager is the one
who takes charge of the decision making. However, the focus of analysis is barely on the level of
the individual. Hence, the entrepreneurial orientation of international firms is not linked with the
individual entrepreneurs themselves (Andersson & Florén, 2008; De Clercq et al., 2005; Knight,
2001). Prior research has underplayed the role of the manager (Hennart, 2007; Hsu et al., 2013;
Sullivan, 1994) in determining his influence on the development of the firms’ internationalization.
Hence, recent research has been occupied with the characteristics of the managers. For instance,
13
Hsu et al. (2013) revealed that the manager in an international company should be young, highly
educated, and should have international experience in order to be positively linked with a firm’s
performance. So far different attempts, as mentioned above, have been made to include external
motivations and personal characteristics. These characteristics and factors provide a better
understanding in performance differences between internationalized SMEs. Although, demographic
factors are not as significant discriminators as behavioral factors (Cavusgil & Naor, 1987; Manolova
et al., 2002). Accordingly, motivational dispositions are assumed to energize behavior. In this
respect few studies have included individual motivations to explain international performance. Since
international behavior is described as entrepreneurial behavior (McDougall & Oviatt, 2000) and
achievement motivation is a predictor of entrepreneurial success, these two go hand in hand with
each other. Managing an international business is presumed to be a complicated task (Ghoshal &
Bartlett, 1990). It requires effective processing of information (Hsu et al., 2013), planning and
innovativeness (Makri, Theodosiou, & Katsikea, 2017; Prange & Pinho, 2017). Transcending
national borders entails many opportunities, but exploiting these opportunities brings along
significant challenges. These behavioral criteria closely coincide with a high level of need for
achievement. Individuals high in need for achievement seek out challenge, take moderate risks and
want to effectively accomplish tasks by surpassing standards of excellence. Building on the above
set of arguments, the following hypothesis is posed:
Hypothesis 1: Positive relation between the implicit need for achievement and
international performance.
Since the perceptible increase in the number of female entrepreneurs, the increasing interest
translated into more attention for the role of the women in a business environment since the 80s.
Most research has been explaining difference between female and male entrepreneurs with regard
to business characteristics, sector, motives and barriers (Rey-Martí et al., 2015). Here, again, most
attention is paid to personality traits. Previous research has focused on motives that drives females
to create businesses, though to a certain degree these motives are extrinsic in most studies.
Personality motives are examined to a lesser extent and resulted in muddled empirical evidence
(Mednick & Thomas, 2014). On the other side, former evidence portrayed negative findings in the
relationship between female owned businesses and international propensity and performance. This
14
sparks the interest in examining whether being a female entrepreneur negatively influences the
relationship between achievement motivation and international success. Therefore:
Hypothesis 2: There is a positive relation between the implicit need for achievement and
internationalization will be weaker when the manager is a female.
Figure 1 illustrates the conceptual framework that has been investigated in this research.
Figure 1: Conceptual Framework
3. Methodology
In the next part, the way in which the sampling was carried out will be described. Thereafter, the
data collection procedures are outlined. Afterwards, a summation is given about all the relevant
variables used in the study and their measurements. The section concludes with an overview table
of the distinct variables.
Sample
This study is based on a purposive instead of a random sample, resulting in the fact that findings
may not be generalizable to other populations. The snowball sampling method was used to collect
a desirable number of respondents. Starting from one ‘expert’, who meets the criteria, and then
asking whether they knew people who comply with the requirements to participate in the study
characteristics. This yielded in respondents in partner companies, companies in their supply chain
15
or competitors across different industries. The sample was a non-probability purposeful one, since
it did not aim to represent a given population, but rather to provide a set of firms.
To investigate whether a relationship could be found between the achievement motive and
international performance, the studied companies had to comply with a number of conditions
andwere selected according to the following criteria. First of all, the company should be an SME,
as typified by the European classification. An enterprise is acknowledged as an SME according to
the European definition, if the staff headcount is lower than 250 employees and either the annual
turnover does not exceed €50 million or the balance sheet total is not higher than €43 million.
Secondly, the participant – who filled in the questionnaire – should be the owner of the company,
CEO, or the manager that is involved in the decisions of the day-to-day business operations. Finally,
the SME must be engaged in international activities or at least have intententions to go abroad.
Data collection
The main data collection method in this study was through the use of a questionnaire that was
conducted in the form of an interview. The data collection proceeded as follows. It used secondary
data to check the criteria of the companies. Especially, the website was used in order to gather
information about the company, searching for relevant information about possible international
activities and contact information. The European SME criteria, if not clear, were checked in the
publications of the annuals account of the financial year 2017 that can be consulted from the
National Bank of Belgium. When the referred company met the conditions, a first contact was made
by e-mail. In this email the research was briefly explained and the possible participants were asked
were interested to take part. About one week after the initial mailing, the companies that did not
respond yet were contacted by a phone call. This was done as a reminder to the email. The email
address as well as the phone number, were retrieved from the website of the company, or through
the referring person. A date was agreed with the participant in question (cf. the owner, CEO,
manager) for an interview. The relevant data for the study was retrieved through an interview in
which the participant had to complete a questionnaire. These surveys were conducted in the period
of January until April of 2019. This questionnaire asked for personal information, business
information, an implicit motive test and also a number of statements on a five-point scale. The final
sample consists of 70 respondents who were willing to make time available for the survey.
16
The overall sample eventually consisted of 69 usable respondents that have filled in all the relevant
data. 82,9% was represented by male entrepreneurs and 17,1% were woman. The mean age of the
entrepreneur was 49,20 years and the majority of the entrepreneurs had attained a master degree.
The sample presented a mean of 46,36 employees in the company and the mean of international to
total sales ratio for those with international activity was 49,82%.
Variables and measures
Independent variabele
The principal explanatory variable is the achievement motivation concept as defined by the
theoretical framework of McClelland and his colleagues (1958). In this study, the focus is on the
implicit system of motivation. To measure the level of implicit need for achievement, the OMT
technique was used. This scoring key attempt to partially address the alleged problems with the TAT
technique while maintaining access to measuring sub-conscious motives (Kuhl & Scheffer, 1999).
A solution to the time-consuming mechanism of TAT was very welcome, since business people are
not thrilled to make time available for answering questions that are completely outside of their
comfort zone. In the OMT, participants reviewed 15 ambiguous drawings. The purpose of the OMT
is that they invent a story around the drawing. In contrast with the TAT technique, they don’t need
to write down narrative accounts in order to produce a coherent desirable story (Kuhl & Scheffer,
1999). They need to write down spontaneous associations to the picture stimulus in the forms of
phrases or words in response to the following questions: (1) “What is important for the person in
this situation and what is the person doing?”; (2) “How does the person feel?”; (3) “Why does the
person feel this way?”; and (4) “How does the story end?”(Slabbinck et al., 2018). In order to express
the intrinsic motives of the participant, the OMT drawings are validated and selected. For example,
if the drawing illustrates a man who raises a heavy stone up in the air while other people are cheering,
can have different interpretations. The participant can either think that “he is proud to be able to lift
that stone” is important for the person in the drawing, or that “he is proud to be focus of attention”
is important to him in the drawing. In the first case, the interpretation of the drawing represents the
need for achievement, while in the latter case, the answer represents the power motive (Kuhl &
Scheffer, 1999).
17
Afterwards, the answers of the participants were independently coded by three coders from UGent.
In order to do so guidelines were followed from the OMT scoring manual from Kuhl and Scheffer
(1999). The OMT scoring technique is presumed to be a reliable and valid measure for the implicit
achievement motivation (Baumann, Kaz, & Kuhl, 2010; Kuhl & Scheffer, 1999). The manual
indicates how responses from the participants need to be scored. Considering the achievement
motive, a sufficient value of .684 for inter-rater reliability among the three coders was found. The
achievement motivation can be classified into five themes. Namely, ‘Experiencing flow while
executing challenging task’, ‘Presence of an internal standard of excellence’, ‘Coping with failure’,
‘Pressure to reach a goal’, and ‘Fear of failure’. Therefore, to code the need for achievement, each
of the 15 drawings was scored 1 (one) if the response included strong indications of any of the five
themes. The responses were coded 0 (zero) if no indication to achievement was mentioned. A
sufficient value of 0,684 for inter-rater reliability amongst the three coders was found.
Dependent variable
The dependent variable in this case is the international performance of the company. This is assessed
by looking at the level of export. Regardless of other modes of foreign entry, export is assumed to
be a relatively easy, fast and most popular way to enter foreign markets (Leonidou et al., 2007; Lu
& Beamish, 2006). This was measured by the percentage of foreign sales on total sales (FSTS)
(Cadogan, Diamantopoulos, & Siguaw, 2002; Mitja Ruzzier, Bostjan Antoncic, Robert D Hisrich,
& Maja Konecnik, 2007; Reuber & Fischer, 1997). During the interviews this percentage was
directly questionedPertaining the FSTS measure to characterize internationalization, Ramaswamy
et al. (1996) argue that the ability of a multidimensional construct, as presented by Sullivan, was
not superior in explaining the variance in performance compared to a single-item measure such as
FSTS. Therefore, the most common measure to assess the firm’s development in
internationalization, FSTS, is used (Yeoh, 2004). This is in line with previous research
Moderator variable
18
In order to determine whether gender could play a role in the relationship between achievement and
international performance, gender was included as moderator. Gender was measured using a
dichotomous variable (i.e., 1 if the CEO of the firm is a male, 2 if the CEO is a female).
Control Variables
In addition to the aforementioned variables a number of control variables are used, including the
firm size, age of the manager, level of education, and industry type. Firstly, on the firm-level, the
size of the firm is measured by the total numbers of employees in the company.
Secondly, the industry sector was also used as a control variable, since it is assumed to have an
impact on the behavior (read: involved activities) of the manager for firm internationalization
(Andersson & Florén, 2011). Furthermore, certain industries might be more receptive to
internationalization than others (De Clercq et al., 2005). In the Belgian context, for instance, the
chocolate sector is very well known for its exports. This control variable is measured by a self-
reported classification of the activity of the business into six categories (1 = Argo-business, 2 =
Furniture, 3 = food and beverage, 4 = fabric, 5 = craft, 6 = others). Moreover, these two control
variables answer on the call of Omri and Becuwe (2014) to take into account several variables which
influence entrepreneurial internationalization in future research.
Next, demographic characteristics were used as individual control variables, since these factors may
influence the performance of an international firm as suggested by Hennart (2007). The age of the
manager is measured by his/her self-reported age, as it had been argued that younger CEOs might
be superior (Hsu et al., 2013). Finally, the educational attainment of the respondents was measured
on a scale of highest degree obtained (1 = primary school, 2 = high school, 3 = bachelor’s degree, 4
= master’s degree, 5 = doctoral degree).
4. Analysis and results
The data were analyzed using the software Statistical Package for Social Sciences (IBM SPSS
statistics 25). Moderated hierarchical regression analysis was used as statistical procedure for
19
investigating the relationship between the level of achievement on international performance, as
well as the moderating effect of gender. The SPSS outputs can be consulted in appendix A.
Descriptives
Table 1 displays the correlations among the variables that are included in the analysis, together with
some descriptives (mean, standard deviation, max values and min values). The correlation
coefficients are not above 0.5, which indicates that problems of multicollinearity will not occur
when carrying out regression analysis. This is confirmed by using the variance inflation factor (VIF)
method, since there is no VIF value observed above 10. The highest VIF is only 1.3, suggesting that
multicollinearity should not be a concern.
Hypotheses testing
The hypotheses were tested using a hierarchical regression model. This procedure is interesting
because we can observe the variability explained by putting in more variables. Especially looking
at the impact of the achievement level. Table 2 provides the results of the hierarchical regression.
The regression analysis was run in three steps. Firstly, a baseline model was tested in which only
the control variables were included. Secondly, the implicit achievement motivation variable was
Table 1: Descriptives and correlations (* P < 0.10 , ** P < 0.05)
Variables
Mean
Standard
deviation
Min
Max
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1. Firm size 46,3642 53.4629 0.000 212 1 -,040 ,126 ,104 -,108 ,039 ,077
2. Industry type 4,3900 1.9430 1 6 1 -,027 ,050 ,164 ,247* -,196
3. Age manager 49,2000 9.2860 27 69
1 -,116 -,139 -,242* ,047
4. Education 3,4000 0.769 2 4 1 -,139 ,033 ,121
5. Gender 1,1700 0.380 1 2 1 ,293* ,077
6. N-Ach 3,5300 1.2590 1 8 1 ,109
7. FSTS 0.4981 0.3198 0 0.99 1
20
included. Thirdly, the interaction term between gender and achievement was comprised, to check
for the moderation effect.
In table 2, results show that the explanatory power in all the models is very low. When only the
control variables are taking into account in the baseline model (model 1), the control variables
explains only 6,5% of the variability in the international performance. When we include the main
variable of interest, namely achievement motivation, model 2 results in an R² of 9,3%. This means
that by inserting the achievement variable into the model, this added to the explanation of the
variance in FSTS by 2,8% (R² change). When we adjust this for the number of variables included,
we obtain an adjusted R² of 2,1%. Finally, including the interaction variable results in an R² change
Table 2: Regression results (* P < 0.10 , ** P < 0.05)
Variables
Model 1
Model 2
Model 3
Intercept 33,328 13,474 11,946
Firm size ,030 ,022 ,026
Industry type -3,188 -3,899* -4,146**
Age manager ,179 ,328 ,293
Education 6,164 6,242 6,600
N-Ach 4,448 5,482
N-Ach *
Gender
-2,455
F-value 1,120 1,292 1,171
R² ,065 ,093 ,102
Adjusted R² ,007 ,021 ,015
21
of 0,9%. Nevertheless, the adjusted R² is reduced to only 1,5%. Low explanatory power are not
uncommon in social science, however, all the models seem to be non-significant.
Hypothesis 1 proposed that entrepreneurs with a high level of implicit achievement motivation
should be positively related to the international performance of the SME. As shown in model 2 of
table 2, the relationship between entrepreneurs’ implicit need for achievement and the foreign sales
on total sales is positive, but not significant on a 0.05 significant level. Even on a 0.10 significant
level, no statistical significance is found. Therefore, the findings reject hypothesis 1.
Hypothesis 2 suggested that being a female entrepreneur has a negative moderating impact on the
relationship between implicit achievement motivation and firm performance. As shown in model 3
of table 2, the interaction of the gender variable and the achievement motivation of the entrepreneur
is negative, but again not statistically significant, rejecting hypothesis 2.
5. Discussion and further research
The results of the current study suggest that the level of the entrepreneurs’ implicit achievement
motivation does not significantly influence the international performance of the company. This is
quite contrasting to the existing literature propositions. The behavioral criteria – which are energized
by the achievement motivation – match very well with the characteristics required to perform
effectively in an international context. Despite the fact of this congruence, this relation seems to be
not statistically justifiable. Thus, in other words, the level of need for achievement of the
entrepreneur does not affect the international development of their company. Therefore, this model
has failed in his intent to link international performance with an in-depth psychological theory.
With regard to the gender aspect, results show that an interaction effect between gender and need
for achievement did not significantly affect the international performance of the company. Hence,
sexual differences of the entrepreneur seem to have no statistical significant impact on the
relationship between his/her achievement motivation and the international performance of their
SMEs.
22
Regardless of these peculiar results, some possible explanations are discussed. First of all, the
sample size consists of only 69 usable respondents. This relatively small sample size could be a
possible explanation why the findings were not statistical. According to Van Voorhis C.R.W, and
Morgan (2007) the general rule of thumb for a regression is no less than 50 participants. This number
of participants should increase with 8 subjects when an extra independent variables is used.
Therefore, if more entrepreneurs had complete the questionnaire, this could possibly yielded more
statistical power. Further research should address this shortcoming by including more respondents
in the sample.
Secondly, it could be possible that there are other relevant variables which are not captured in this
research. The non-significant findings could indicate that investigating a direct relationship between
achievement motivation of the entrepreneur and internationalization impose an incomplete picture
(Prange & Pinho, 2017). This points out that there might be other external factors in the environment
or simply non-individual factors that would have more predicting power.
Thirdly, the insignificant interaction effect between gender and need for achievement could be
explained by the inconsistent findings in literature. Langan‐Fox and Roth (1995) achieved in finding
a positive effect of achievement motivation on managerial abilities. While did others did not
accomplish to prove significant results. Also in other fields such as college performance, gender
differences remained unclear. As a result, the presumed relationship between gender and
achievement motivation might not have been very useful.
Finally, it could be possible that a high level of achievement simply has no impact on the
international performance. Although this is very unlikely with regard to the demonstrated findings
in the literature, it could be explained by the specific sample of entrepreneurs in Belgium. Regarding
to the descriptives the average sales abroad on the total sales are about 50%. This is already a
relatively high percentage as an average. This percentage, together with the fact that export activities
represent 87,9% of the GDP in Belgium (Eurostat, 2018) indicates that Belgium companies are
quite acquainted with exporting activities. Therefore it could be that internationalization is not
perceived as an incentive in Belgium. People that are scoring high on need for achievement are
associated with seeking out challenges and risks. They want to succeed in their intent by working
hard for it. They want to win, not in a ridiculous manner, but in a way that demands high effort in
order that they are proud in what they have achieved. In Belgium, International trade is considered
23
as the artery of their contemporary economy (VBO, 2017). Therefore, the level of risk and challenge
could be considered as low. A research of Majocchi and Zucchella (2001) conducted with a set of
Italian SMEs suggested that the performance of these SMEs where not defined by their export
intensity, but by the ability of those SMEs to gain access to specific market outside the European
Union. Since the European Union is perceived as an integrated macro-regional area, this could
reduce the level of risk in international activities within the European Union. For instance, due to
the international Euro (€) financial risks are diminished. Companies exporting to countries within
the European Union does not face any currency risk, which is in contrast with other continents in
the world (Fujita & Hamaguchi, 2016). The risk and challenges around internationalization could
be perceived as low. Therefore possessing a high level of achievement could be unnecessary to
relate with internationalize performance since exporting is an activity where Belgians are familiar
with it. In order to confirm this possible explanation for the insignificant research, further research
may be profitable. It would be interesting to carry out a more in-depth investigation through
examining entrepreneurs who exert international activities outside the European Union.
Furthermore, other countries from the European Union could be investigated in order to detect
possible similarities or differences to the Belgian context.
As additional remark, in this research there has been no distinction made entrepreneur and managers.
This facilitated the data collection, but in future research a distinction could be made. This may be
relevant to take into account since Stewart and Roth (2007) have indicated that the achievement
motivation differ among the two.
6. Conclusion and future research
Internationalization is recognized as an indispensable and valuable growth strategy. This is
especially the case for Belgium, since Belgian SMEs operate in a limited domestic market and thus
small firms are often forced to seek growth opportunities in foreign markets (De Clercq et al., 2005).
In this study, the purpose was to add new insights into the understanding of international
performance. This was done by focusing on the differences in personality motivations, more
specifically, implicit achievement motivation. The research was performed by investigating the
relationship between entrepreneurs’ level of achievement and the international performance of their
24
SMEs. Prior literature provided a solid foundation for this relationship. In vain, the relationship did
not find statistical significance. Moreover, an attempt was made to include the emergence of female
entrepreneurs. This study has, therefore, examined a potential moderating effect of the gender aspect
on the relationship between need for achievement and international performance. However, here
again, no significant result was found. The peculiar findings deserve deliberately thought. Possible
explanations for these results have been provided. Future research should address the shortcomings
of this research and provide a better understanding in order to explain those results.
25
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33
Appendix A Descripive statistics
34
Descriptive Statistics
N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation
No_of_Employees 70 ,00000000000
0000
212,00000000
0000000
46,364285714
285730
53,462935923
856100
Sector_of_Industry 70 1 6 4,39 1,943
Age 69 27 69 49,20 9,286
Education 70 2 4 3,40 ,769
Gender 70 1 2 1,17 ,380
Imp_Ach 70 1 8 3,53 1,259
FSTS 70 0,00% 99,00% 49,8160% 31,98206%
Valid N (listwise) 69
Correlations
No_of_Emplo
yees
Sector_of_In
dustry Age Education Gender Imp_Ach FSTS
No_of_Employee
s
Pearson
Correlation
1 -,040 ,126 ,104 -,108 ,039 ,077
Sig. (2-tailed) ,744 ,304 ,392 ,373 ,748 ,528
N 70 70 69 70 70 70 70
Sector_of_Industr
y
Pearson
Correlation
-,040 1 -,027 ,050 ,164 ,247* -,196
Sig. (2-tailed) ,744 ,826 ,678 ,174 ,039 ,103
N 70 70 69 70 70 70 70
Age Pearson
Correlation
,126 -,027 1 -,116 -,139 -,242* ,047
Sig. (2-tailed) ,304 ,826 ,343 ,256 ,045 ,704
N 69 69 69 69 69 69 69
Education Pearson
Correlation
,104 ,050 -,116 1 -,139 ,033 ,121
Sig. (2-tailed) ,392 ,678 ,343 ,251 ,787 ,319
N 70 70 69 70 70 70 70
Gender Pearson
Correlation
-,108 ,164 -,139 -,139 1 ,293* ,077
Sig. (2-tailed) ,373 ,174 ,256 ,251 ,014 ,528
N 70 70 69 70 70 70 70
Imp_Ach Pearson
Correlation
,039 ,247* -,242* ,033 ,293* 1 ,109
Sig. (2-tailed) ,748 ,039 ,045 ,787 ,014 ,371
N 70 70 69 70 70 70 70
35
Hypotheses testing
Model summary
Model Summary
Model R R Square
Adjusted R
Square
Std. Error of
the Estimate
Change Statistics
R Square
Change F Change df1 df2 Sig. F Change
1 ,256a ,065 ,007 31,63671% ,065 1,120 4 64 ,355
2 ,305b ,093 ,021 31,41258% ,028 1,917 1 63 ,171
3 ,319c ,102 ,015 31,51051% ,009 ,609 1 62 ,438
a. Predictors: (Constant), Education, Sector_of_Industry, No_of_Employees, Age
b. Predictors: (Constant), Education, Sector_of_Industry, No_of_Employees, Age, Imp_Ach
c. Predictors: (Constant), Education, Sector_of_Industry, No_of_Employees, Age, Imp_Ach, Gender_Ach
Anova
ANOVAa
Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.
1 Regression 4482,827 4 1120,707 1,120 ,355b
Residual 64056,395 64 1000,881
Total 68539,222 68
2 Regression 6373,974 5 1274,795 1,292 ,279c
Residual 62165,249 63 986,750
Total 68539,222 68
3 Regression 6978,667 6 1163,111 1,171 ,333d
Residual 61560,555 62 992,912
Total 68539,222 68
a. Dependent Variable: FSTS
b. Predictors: (Constant), Education, Sector_of_Industry, No_of_Employees, Age
c. Predictors: (Constant), Education, Sector_of_Industry, No_of_Employees, Age, Imp_Ach
d. Predictors: (Constant), Education, Sector_of_Industry, No_of_Employees, Age, Imp_Ach,
Gender_Ach
FSTS Pearson
Correlation
,077 -,196 ,047 ,121 ,077 ,109 1
Sig. (2-tailed) ,528 ,103 ,704 ,319 ,528 ,371
N 70 70 69 70 70 70 70
*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).
36
Coefficients
Coefficientsa
Model
Unstandardized
Coefficients
Standardiz
ed
Coefficients
t Sig.
Correlations
Collinearity
Statistics
B Std. Error Beta
Zero-
order Partial Part
Toleran
ce VIF
1 (Constant) 33,328 29,543 1,128 ,263
No_of_Employ
ees
,030 ,072 ,051 ,418 ,677 ,081 ,052 ,051 ,968 1,033
Sector_of_Indu
stry
-3,188 1,966 -,196 -1,622 ,110 -,193 -,199 -,196 ,995 1,005
Age ,179 ,420 ,052 ,425 ,672 ,047 ,053 ,051 ,967 1,034
Education 6,164 5,051 ,150 1,220 ,227 ,140 ,151 ,147 ,970 1,031
2 (Constant) 13,474 32,652 ,413 ,681
No_of_Employ
ees
,022 ,072 ,037 ,301 ,765 ,081 ,038 ,036 ,961 1,040
Sector_of_Indu
stry
-3,899 2,018 -,240 -1,932 ,058 -,193 -,236 -,232 ,931 1,074
Age ,328 ,431 ,096 ,762 ,449 ,047 ,096 ,091 ,906 1,103
Education 6,242 5,015 ,152 1,245 ,218 ,140 ,155 ,149 ,970 1,031
Imp_Ach 4,448 3,213 ,177 1,384 ,171 ,102 ,172 ,166 ,876 1,142
3 (Constant) 11,946 32,812 ,364 ,717
No_of_Employ
ees
,026 ,073 ,044 ,358 ,721 ,081 ,045 ,043 ,956 1,046
Sector_of_Indu
stry
-4,146 2,049 -,255 -2,023 ,047 -,193 -,249 -,244 ,909 1,100
Age ,293 ,435 ,086 ,673 ,503 ,047 ,085 ,081 ,896 1,116
Education 6,600 5,052 ,160 1,307 ,196 ,140 ,164 ,157 ,962 1,039
Imp_Ach 5,482 3,485 ,219 1,573 ,121 ,102 ,196 ,189 ,749 1,335
Gender_Ach -2,455 3,146 -,105 -,780 ,438 -,003 -,099 -,094 ,806 1,241
a. Dependent Variable: FSTS