Which Google keywords influence entrepreneurs? Empirical evidence from Vietnam

Purpose This paper aims to shed light on an impact of Google keywords on the number of new businesses (and an amount of capital registered) in Vietnam, the Southeast Asian country, after the year of an entrepreneur, 2016. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a rich set of quantitative techniques from VAR Granger and threshold regression. The whole sample period covers the data (keywords, number of new businesses, an amount of capital invested to register) from the first week of 2016 to October 2018, which includes 144 observations in total. Findings The findings suggest that the relationship between Google does not persist in the long run. There is a short-run shock, might cause a change to the frequency of the other keywords rather than the number of firms (or an amount of capital). However, under the number of firms’ threshold, keywords have the both positive and negative impacts on entrepreneurs whereas a higher threshold of capital, keywords show their roles to predict an amount of money for registering firms. Practical implications The Vietnamese Government and executives are advised to consider the Google keywords “entrepreneur” (in Vietnamese) and “start-up”, which cause a decline in entrepreneurial movements. In addition, the current period is going to inverse from the previous one in terms of the number of firms and an amount of capital. Finally, there are two critical thresholds: 1,602 companies and 35,010m VND for the keywords' influence. Originality/value This study contributes empirical evidence of technological change and entrepreneurship and contributes to the existing literature by discussing how this relationship under the threshold.