Good Morning,Vietnam! Opportunities and Challenges in a Developing Franchise Sector

Until recently the development of franchising in Vietnam was hampered by a regulatory framework that did not recognize franchising as a discrete business relationship. The introduction of Vietnam's Franchise Law in 2005 provided, for the first time, a legal foundation for franchising, which was a necessary prerequisite for sector development. Although there are currently few business format franchise systems operating in Vietnam, there is an increasing presence of established international franchise systems and increasing numbers of local systems albeit at an early “product distribution” evolutionary stage. Moreover, the commercial environment for franchising is increasingly favorable: Vietnam is the fastest growing Asian economy after China and India and is experiencing strong gross domestic product growth and annual retail growth. This article addresses the development of franchising, and the challenges and opportunities for franchisers in Vietnam.     

Deconstructing the Franchise as a Legal Entity: Practice and Research in International Franchise Law

This article canvasses practice and research in international franchising law. The franchisor law's key concepts are introduced. I then identify aspects of franchising practice that are poorly accommodated by the law. These aspects offer opportunities for productive research. I identify these aspects as follows: franchising law's reliance on contracts to regulate the relationship through all its phases, the risk that a “franchisee” is an employee, good faith, governance, and insolvency. I continue with suggestions as to why these challenges exist. The article concludes with emerging themes in franchise practice and research: e-commerce, natural disasters, sustainability, micro-franchising, and social franchising.     

Meeting the Challenges for Franchising in Developing Countries: The Vietnamese Experience

While business format franchising is the industry standard for developed countries, it remains an aspiration for many developing countries. Despite the attraction for developing countries of systems, training, and support and despite the economic and regulatory infrastructure being in place for the development of business format franchising, a range of commercial and socio-cultural factors may conspire to prevent its full expression. This paper addresses franchising development in Vietnam, a developing country. It considers strategies to bridge the gap between Vietnamese franchise practice and franchising best practice. It proposes that in Vietnam's current state of development, the product and trade name model may be the appropriate starting point with a move to the business format model only when, and in places where, the socio-cultural, commercial, and economic factors and the legal environment can accommodate more sophisticated business format franchise arrangements.     

从日本“7-11”便利店的成功看我国特许经营的发展

特许经营作为一种先进的经营方式,20世纪90年代以来,在我国达到了快速发展,取得了良好的经济效益和社会效益。但从整体来看,特许经营在我国的发展还面临许多亟待解决的问题,与经济发展和人民消费方式的要求还很不适应。为此,必须按照特许经营发展的内在规律,借鉴国外特许经营发展的成功经验,结合我国特许经营发展的实际,有效地发展我国的特许经营。     

Shopping and cross-shopping practices in Hanoi Vietnam: An emerging urban market context

The process of supermarketization in emerging countries does not imply convergence in shopping practices. Based on a qualitative study in Hanoi, Vietnam, this paper adopts a shopping-as-practice approach with a specific focus on factors influencing practices. Seventy-night interviews were conducted in six urban districts of Hanoi. The results allowed to identify five types of shopping practices of differing natures and degrees of cross-shopping, and different strategies used to accomplish these practices, dominated by constraints or based on trust. The analysis showed the relationships between the factors and (1) shopping and cross-shopping strategies and (2) the dimensions of shopping practices. These findings deepen the current understanding of shopping and cross-shopping practices in the context of emerging markets. This paper also provides recommendations regarding retail policy and development in Vietnam.     

Child injury prevention in Vietnam: achievements and challenges

As with other South Asian countries, injury is becoming a leading cause of death and morbidity among children in Vietnam. In response to the increasing burden of child injury, government and non-government agencies in Vietnam have combined efforts during the last decade to develop and implement various child injury prevention strategies and programmes. This article provides, through a review of relevant documents and interviews with major stakeholders, an overview of these efforts and highlights major challenges to child injury prevention in the country. The findings point to notable achievements in terms of increasing awareness of injury facing children at all levels in the community and developing a sound injury prevention policy framework in a relatively short period of time. However, much needs to be done to implement necessary environmental and legislative changes, strengthen child injury surveillance and injury prevention research; and to improve access to health services. The insight into the experience of Vietnam could benefit other low- and middle-income countries with a high burden of child injury.     

Critical success factors in project management: implication from Vietnam

This study will assess successful project performance based on key project factors. The indicators of project success are cost, time, technical performance and customer satisfaction as used in previous studies. The sample consisted of 239 project members and managers currently involved in infrastructure projects in Vietnam. Regression analysis was used to test five hypotheses developed from theories on project success. Three groups of factors including manager competencies, member competencies and external stability have significant positive relationships to the success criteria. The completion and implementation stages in the project life cycle are also positively related to success. The implementation stage of a project moderates both the effects of external stability and organization support on success. The implication for project managers is that implementation is the key stage in determining the success of projects.     

Asian Transnational Corporations and Labor Rights: Vietnamese Trade Unions in Taiwan-invested Companies

According to the reports in the past decade, some Asian subcontractors, mainly Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea transnational corporations, tend to be labor abusive in their overseas investment destinations like China or Southeast Asia. Taking Vietnam as an example, this paper raises questions as to why Taiwanese transnational companies can control workplace unions in a trade-union-supportive regime. Given the government s constraint of political rights, and the individualized workplace unions, the function of trade unions in Vietnam is destined to be limited. The trade unions turn out be an arm of management, rather than representing workers interests in these transnational companies. This article also explores the influence of the newly developed codes of conducts from Western buyers. In the survey of three companies which are required to follow the codes of conduct by buyers, trade unions had no more freedom than those in companies without codes of conduct. The paper discusses the implications of this research, offering strategies for labor rights improvements.Hong-zen Wang is the director of the Graduate Institute of Southeast Asian Studies at the National Chi Nan University, Taiwan. A sociologist, he has written widely on Asian labor and class issues. The most recent article The Impact of the State on Workers Conditions–Comparing Taiwanese Factories in China and Vietnam will be published in Pacific Affairs. His current research interests include industrial relations in Taiwan-owned or partially owned factories in Vietnam and the impact of global anti-sweatshop movement on the third world factories.     

The Franchise Fulcrum: The Legal System's Contributions to Research about Power and Control in Business Format Franchising

Franchisors’ need for power over their franchisees and control of their brands underpins their apparent opportunism. Through Australian and United States examples, we identify how the legal system's levers facilitate examination of opportunism within franchising. We suggest that the balance of power and control within franchising is ever changing. We suggest that all legal systems provide rich and often overlooked data for business researchers investigating franchise relationships. They should be accessed to help franchising stakeholders frame research propositions and to understand and meet twenty-first century challenges such as those posed by Gen Y and online retailing.     

The neglected need for strategic renewal in emerging markets: Lessons from Vietnam in transition

Research on strategy in emerging markets is based on overly static representations, paying insufficient attention to the impact of contextual change on the value of firms’ resources. This article examines how a sample of the most successful Vietnamese private companies during the first decade of their country's transition from central planning was affected by the shifting rules of the game in their business environment. I suggest the primary takeaway is that sustained superior performance in an environment with changing keys to success requires dedicated and ongoing strategic renewal. I also suggest the need for both scholars and managers to immerse themselves in emerging markets if they care to fully understand the granular ways in which these settings differ from more familiar advanced economies.     

The Psychological Contract in Employment in Vietnam: Preliminary Empirical Evidence from an Economy in Transition

The psychological contract is defined as a set of mutual and promissory obligations perceived by employees and employers in their employment relationship. Although this concept had been extensively researched in the West, little empirical evidence in other contexts was available. This study operationalized the concept of psychological contract in Vietnam, an economy in transition. From a sample of 220 questionnaires of employees and their corresponding human resource managers, it found some distinct features of the psychological contract. Furthermore, this articles confirmed the congruence in the perceptions of employees and employers about contract obligations and fulfilments.     

The Vietnam project: developing conceptual knowledge on cross-cultural skills for training in SME internationalization

This paper explores the importance of cross-cultural skills needed by Vietnamese SMEs (current and potential) exporters across Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). The findings suggest that training needs vary by regions, stage of SME development and cultural context of the region. The study has both theoretical and practical implications. The paper suggests that prior to designing and implementing training, the identification process must involve systematic conceptualization of key export stimuli and be informed by best practice and empirical knowledge. The study endeavours to develop a conceptual framework and propositions for future research.     

Training and firm performance in economies in transition: a comparison between Vietnam and China

This paper provides a comparative analysis on the role of training and its impact on firm performance in some economies in transition in Asia. The starting point is an examination of country contexts and training, and how these have shaped organizational approaches to human resource (HR) training. The paper also reviews the results of recent studies that have investigated the relationship between training and firm performance in Vietnam and China. The review results show that training is positively related to firm performance and reveals some convergence of HR training in both countries. On the basis of this, some caveats on HR training development in the future in these two countries are given. The paper ends with theoretical and practical implications.     

Subnational home market bias in Vietnam: Evidence from enterprise‐level data

This paper contributes to the home (market) bias literature where administrative or political borders limit trade across borders. Home bias is well documented at the national and subnational level. To sort out macro (e.g., location characteristics) and micro (e.g., enterprise characteristics) factors behind home bias, we use small and medium‐sized enterprise (SME) data from Vietnam. Using the fractional multinomial logit model, we find that the proportion of SME sales outside of their home markets is positively associated with enterprise size, age, number of business association memberships and the distance of SMEs' most important supplier. In contrast, the proportion of SME sales to neighbouring provinces is negatively associated with the share of SME production for final consumption. Besides enterprise‐level frictions, market characteristics matter too. The proportion of SME sales to customers in their home markets is negatively associated with home or neighbouring provinces' governance quality, while the proportion of sales to customers in neighbouring provinces is positively associated with these areas' governance quality. These suggest that good governance frees SME resources for use in selling to less familiar markets.     

Marketing Metrics Use in a Transition Economy: The Case of Vietnam

ABSTRACT

This article explores the use of marketing metrics by a sample of Vietnamese firms, providing an example of the use of marketing metrics in a “transition” economy as it grows and becomes more market and marketing driven. The analysis reports usage frequency and then develops a set of “correlation chains” linking firm characteristics, metric use, and various indicators of performance. Vietnamese managers generally report that several types of metrics are used. Ownership structure and industry also impact which metrics are utilized. An initial assessment of chains relating metric use to firm performance indicates that the impact is complex and indirect.     

Playing with class: Middle‐class intensive mothering and the consumption of children's toys in Vietnam

This article explores the way in which Vietnamese mothers purchase, gift and share toys with their children. The study utilises a qualitative design comprising semi‐structured interviews with 10 Vietnamese middle‐class professional working mothers of children aged between 5 and 9. This research highlights the way in which toys defined as “good” by mothers need to fulfil a number of important practical and social functions: they act as an investment in the child's future, as a reward, and as a means for mothers to buy time for themselves. The findings illustrate how these functions are influenced by Confucian and Western discourses of intensive mothering, generating a localized style of middle‐class intensive mothering, characterized by what we have called the ideal of the triple excellent and intensive mother.     

Business responses to climate change: strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Vietnam

This study identifies the climate change strategies adopted by firms in developing countries to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. First, a framework is developed to classify and assess the GHG emission strategies of companies; second, it is then improved by using data on their implementation collected from 185 companies operating in 10 energy-intensive industries in Vietnam. We find that multinational subsidiaries engage in various climate change activities and have a higher level of implementation than those of domestic firms. Further, the most active and proactive companies are large in size and from Europe, the United States and Japan.     

Human Resource Management Practices in a Transitional Economy: A Comparative Study of Enterprise Ownership Forms in Vietnam

This exploratory study compared human resource management (HRM) practices in four types of companies in Vietnam. It found, from a sample of 169 companies, that the adoption of HRM practices reflects the company's ownership traits. Overall, foreign-invested companies (FICs) are somewhat more developed in HRM practices than state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Conversely, local private companies, albeit more entrepreneurial, are often less receptive to adopting HRM practices than SOEs. It also revealed that transforming SOEs into equitized companies has brought about no significant changes in this regard. Together with an examination of the impact of management's perceived value of human resources (HR), union status, and company size, the study provides more insight into the variations in HRM practices and suggests some implications for initiating change in this area.     

Brand personality appeal,brand relationship quality and WOM transmission: a study of consumer markets in Vietnam

This study investigates the impact of brand personality appeal on both brand relationship quality and word-of-mouth (WOM) transmission in Vietnam. It also examines the role of consumer attitudes towards advertising and public relations on brand personality appeal as well as brand relationship quality. An empirical test with a sample of 477 consumers by means of structural equation modelling reveals that brand personality appeal has a positive impact on both brand relationship quality and WOM transmission and that brand relationship quality has a positive effect on WOM transmission. Furthermore, attitudes towards public relations have positive impacts on both brand personality appeal and brand relationship quality. Finally, attitudes towards advertising have a positive impact on brand personality appeal but not on brand relationship quality.     

Design leadership,work values ethic and workplace innovation: an investigation of SMEs in Thailand and Vietnam

Abstract

This study established a new three-dimensional model identifying the relationship between design leadership, workplace values ethic (WVE) and workplace innovation. Based on an analysis of 696 usable questionnaires distributed among small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Thailand and Vietnam, our results revealed that WVE influences leadership behavior. In addition, design leadership has a significant effect on the four dimensions of workplace innovation, thus confirming an interactionist theory perspective. Furthermore, examining the under-researched Thai and Vietnamese SME context, the findings indicated that the relationship between WVE and workplace innovation is mediated by leadership behavior. In this way, the study extends the design leadership, innovation and values literatures.