Innovation and Export of Vietnam’s SME Sector

Innovation has long been considered an important factor for creating and maintaining the competitiveness of nations and firms. The relationship between innovation and exporting has been investigated for many countries. However, there is a paucity of research in Vietnam with respect to this issue. In this paper we examine whether innovation performed by Vietnam’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs) enhances their exporting likelihood. Using the recently released Vietnam Small and Medium Enterprise Survey 2005, we find that innovation as measured directly by ‘new products’, ‘new production process’ and ‘improvement of existing products’ are important determinants of exports by Vietnamese SMEs.Vietnam; Export; Innovation; Small and Medium Enterprise

Has the U.S.-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement Led to Higher FDI into Vietnam?

In December 2001, a Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) came into effect that normalized economic relations between the United States and Vietnam. The resulting surge in trade surpassed most expectations. The impact of the BTA on FDI, however, has been less visible, especially with regard to U.S. FDI into Vietnam. This paper uses new data that accounts for FDI by U.S. subsidiaries resident in third counties to show that U.S. firms have been much more aggressive investors in Vietnam than normally reported in typical bilateral FDI data using Balance of Payments definitions of capital flows. While the U.S. is widely reported as the 11th largest investor into Vietnam, the new data shows that U.S.-related FDI exceeded all other countries in 2004. Although a formal model is not developed, descriptive data supports strongly the conclusion that the BTA has had a major impact on FDI into Vietnam, especially with regard to FDI from U.S. multinationals.FDI; Trade Agreement

Knowledge Creation And Green Entrepreneurship: A Study Of Two Vietnamese Green Firms

This paper aims to advance the understanding and practice of knowledge-based management in Vietnam by studying two Vietnamese agricultural companies. It provides illustrative examples of how knowledge-based management, pursuing a vision that fosters creativity and innovation by employees, could ultimately fulfil the profitability objective of the business and at the same time add value to the community’s quality of life. Using the SECI model as the parameter for analysis, we found that knowledge creation processes were affected by a combination of leadership, teamwork and Ba, corporate culture, and human resource management. Our conclusion emphasises the need for future research to further examine the practice of knowledge-based management in cross-industry segments in Vietnam and in other countries with similar conditions

Economic performance of Vietnam, 1976-2000: New evidence from input-output model

This study provides a concise introduction to the economic history of Vietnam from 1976 to present. We identify different phases of the development of the Vietnamese economy, from its unification after a Vietnam war to the current phases of the transition (1989-2000) and propose a specific pattern of transition in the case of Vietnam. This research is the first attempt to make a synthesis quantitative analysis of socio-economic aggregate data during different phases of the Vietnamese economy in 1986-2000, in which different national input-output tables (1989, 1996 and 2000) in constant prices have been employed. The economic performances are investigated from three aspects: (i) evolution of domestic final demand; (ii) evolution of international trade structure and (iii) the technological change. The analysis shows economic history of Vietnam from 1986 up to present as a continuous evolutionary process and integration in to the international market is inevitable. Government programmes only played a vital role of accommodator to the economic changes of the Vietnamese economy.Input-output analysis, Vietnamese economy, Economic history, Transition economy, Macro-economic policy

A hierarchical architecture for increasing efficiency of large photovoltaic plants under non-homogeneous solar irradiation

Under non-homogeneous solar irradiation, photovoltaic (PV) panels receive different solar irradiance, resulting in a decrease in efficiency of the PV generation system. There are a few technical options to fix this issue that goes under the name of mismatch. One of these is the reconfiguration of the PV generation system, namely changing the connections of the PV panels from the initial configuration to the optimal one. Such technique has been widely considered for small systems, due to the excessive number of required switches. In this paper, the authors propose a new method for increasing the efficiency of large PV systems under non-homogeneous solar irradiation using Series-Parallel (SP) topology. In the first part of the paper, the authors propose a method containing two key points: a switching matrix to change the connection of PV panels based on SP topology and the proof that the SP-based reconfiguration method can increase the efficiency of the photovoltaic system up to 50%. In the second part, the authors propose the extension of the method proposed in the first part to improve the efficiency of large solar generation systems by means of a two-levels architecture to minimize the cost of fabrication of the switching matrix

Impact analysis of actuator torque degradation on the IRB 120 robot performance using simscape-based model

Actuators in a robot system may become faulty during their life cycle. Locked joints, free-moving joints, and the loss of actuator torque are common faulty types of robot joints where the actuators fail. Locked and free-moving joint issues are addressed by many published articles, whereas the actuator torque loss still opens attractive investigation challenges. The objectives of this study are to classify the loss of robot actuator torque, named actuator torque degradation, into three different cases: Boundary degradation of torque, boundary degradation of torque rate, and proportional degradation of torque, and to analyze their impact on the performance of a typical 6-DOF robot (i.e., the IRB 120 robot). Typically, controllers of robots are not pre-designed specifically for anticipating these faults. To isolate and focus on the impact of only actuator torque degradation faults, all robot parameters are assumed to be known precisely, and a popular closed-loop controller is used to investigate the robot’s responses under these faults. By exploiting MATLAB-the reliable simulation environment, a simscape-based quasi-physical model of the robot is built and utilized instead of an actual expensive prototype. The simulation results indicate that the robot responses cannot follow the desired path properly in most fault cases

Assessing the construct validity and reliability of the Academic Motivation Scale in the Vietnamese context

BackgroundAcademic motivation is one of the most studied constructs in psychology. However, in Vietnam, the lack of valid and reliable instruments evaluating academic motivation has led to limitations in research on this topic. The Academic Motivation Scale (AMS) is widely applied to different contexts across the world. The purpose of the study is to assess the construct validity and reliability of the AMS with a sample of Vietnamese university students.Participants and procedureThe research study was conducted with a convenience sample of 341 university students. Male students accounted for 11.70% of participants. The average age was 20.28 with a standard deviation of 1.12. To participate in the study, students conducted an online questionnaire consisting of the AMS. We conducted confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and correlation analysis and calculated Cronbach’s α to examine the validity and reliability of the scale.ResultsCFA indicated that the seven-factor model fitted the data best, with all the unstandardized factor loadings being statistically sig-nificant. Regarding reliability, AMS subscales had satisfactory Cronbach αs. Correlation analysis supported almost entirely the hypothesis about simplex structure of the AMS.ConclusionsConsidering the results, we suggest that the AMS has met the requirements for validity and reliability, and could be used in research with Vietnamese university students on academic motivation itself and its relationships with other psychological constructs.BackgroundAcademic motivation is one of the most studied constructs in psychology. However, in Vietnam, the lack of valid and reliable instruments evaluating academic motivation has led to limitations in research on this topic. The Academic Motivation Scale (AMS) is widely applied to different contexts across the world. The purpose of the study is to assess the construct validity and reliability of the AMS with a sample of Vietnamese university students.Participants and procedureThe research study was conducted with a convenience sample of 341 university students. Male students accounted for 11.70% of participants. The average age was 20.28 with a standard deviation of 1.12. To participate in the study, students conducted an online questionnaire consisting of the AMS. We conducted confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and correlation analysis and calculated Cronbach’s α to examine the validity and reliability of the scale.ResultsCFA indicated that the seven-factor model fitted the data best, with all the unstandardized factor loadings being statistically sig-nificant. Regarding reliability, AMS subscales had satisfactory Cronbach αs. Correlation analysis supported almost entirely the hypothesis about simplex structure of the AMS.ConclusionsConsidering the results, we suggest that the AMS has met the requirements for validity and reliability, and could be used in research with Vietnamese university students on academic motivation itself and its relationships with other psychological constructs

Cultural evolution in Vietnam’s early 20th century: a Bayesian networks analysis of Hanoi Franco-Chinese house designs

The study of cultural evolution has taken on an increasingly interdisciplinary and diverse approach in explicating phenomena of cultural transmission and adoptions. Inspired by this computational movement, this study uses Bayesian networks analysis, combining both the frequentist and the Hamiltonian Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) approach, to investigate the highly representative elements in the cultural evolution of a Vietnamese city’s architecture in the early 20th century. With a focus on the façade design of 68 old houses in Hanoi’s Old Quarter (based on 78 data lines extracted from 248 photos), the study argues that it is plausible to look at the aesthetics, architecture, and designs of the house façade to find traces of cultural evolution in Vietnam, which went through more than six decades of French colonization and centuries of sociocultural influence from China. The in-depth technical analysis, though refuting the presumed model on the probabilistic dependency among the variables, yields several results, the most notable of which is the strong influence of Buddhism over the decorations of the house façade. Particularly, in the top 5 networks with the best Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) scores and p\u3c0.05, the variable for decorations (DC) always has a direct probabilistic dependency on the variable B for Buddhism. The paper then checks the robustness of these models using Hamiltonian MCMC method and find the posterior distributions of the models’ coefficients all satisfy the technical requirement. Finally, this study suggests integrating Bayesian statistics in the social sciences in general and for the study of cultural evolution and architectural transformation in particular