Abstract This study examines the influence of personality traits and culture on entrepreneurial intention in the context of Vietnam, a transition economy. An integrated research framework was built that consisted of two dominant personality traits, including the need for achievement and entrepreneurial alertness, and three cultural dimensions based on the Appropriateness, Consistency, and Effectiveness (ACE) model. A self-administered survey was employed to collect data from 945 students from the three biggest cities of Vietnam. Structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis was adopted to examine the influence of personality traits and culture on entrepreneurial intention. Furthermore, a multi-group analysis was performed to test the moderating effect of gender on the entrepreneurial intention model. This study found that cultural dimensions had a stronger impact on entrepreneurial intention than personality traits, except for entrepreneurial alertness. Male students were slightly more influenced by perceived appropriateness and perceived effectiveness than female ones when forming their entrepreneurial intention.