The Importance of the State’s Entrepreneurial Role, Business Support Services, and Technological Assistances to the Development of Vietnamese SMEs

This paper reports the findings of a study that examines the evolving relationships between the state’s entrepreneurial role and market factors such as business support services, business training and professional development, technological and information support services and SMEs’ development in Vietnam. This study uses an institutional approach to study how the entrepreneurial state influences the creation of market factors in Vietnam. The findings suggest that the state has taken some committed initiatives in attracting external support, building infrastructure both tangible and intangible, and enabling structural flexibility for the growth of SMEs. The state’s entrepreneurial role is of special importance since it can coordinate with existing market factors to provide policy support, external resources, and institutional infrastructure for the growth of SMEs in Vietnam. However, inconsistency in policy, slow pace of market reform in selected business areas, and inadequate resource allocation practices have hindered the development of SMEs.