Explaining micro-enterprise survival in rural Vietnam: a multilevel analysis

To date, most of the empirical work conducted on enterprise survival has focused on enterprises in developed countries, while studies on enterprise survival in rural areas of emerging markets remain scarce. This paper attempts to address this gap in the research by using mixed-effects parametric survival models to analyze the effects of factors, at different explanatory levels, on the survival probability of micro-enterprises in rural Vietnam. The results show that enterprise-specific factors dominate with regard to explaining the survival probability of such micro-enterprises. However, the empirical results also indicate that the linkages of micro-enterprises with their broader economic environment, as well as some location-specific factors, such as access to markets and financial services, contribute significantly towards explaining the survival probability of micro-enterprises in rural Vietnam.