<p>Psychological Capital (PsyCap) is widely conceptualized as an individual-level resource that predicts entrepreneurial intention and performance. Yet, dominant research has largely adopted quantitative and performance-oriented frameworks, leaving underexplored how PsyCap is experienced, interpreted, and culturally negotiated in lived entrepreneurial practice. This study reconceptualizes PsyCap through an interpretative phenomenological analysis of eight Vietnamese undergraduate student entrepreneurs. In-depth interviews examined how participants constructed meaning around their psychological resources across perceived phases of their entrepreneurial journeys. Findings indicate that PsyCap functions not merely as an internal performance-enhancing capacity but as a morally infused, relationally co-constructed process. Hope emerged as collective visioning linked to social contribution; self-efficacy was enacted through experiential mastery and social affirmation; resilience was sustained through culturally embedded narratives of perseverance; and optimism operated as a meaning-making orientation integrating purpose with realism. Rather than static traits, these dimensions were narratively reconstructed in response to uncertainty and identity negotiation. The study advances a moral–relational model of PsyCap in collectivist entrepreneurship contexts and invites reconsideration of PsyCap as a culturally embedded system of agency with implications for entrepreneurship education.</p>