Vietnamese Entrepreneurs should Promote a Sense of Community

Vietnamese Entrepreneurs should Promote a Sense of Community

The Vietnamese entrepreneurs’ community has a limited number of members who lack financial strength and management experience. Most enterprises have been set up since Vietnam was recognised as a market economy. During international integration, the development of the sense of community plays an important role, helping enterprises improve their competitiveness in the international market.

Poor sense of community results from poverty?

Le Dac Son, general director of the VP Bank, said that co-operation among entrepreneurs within an industry or a locality remained weak. They have not found a common language and common benefit yet.

There are many reasons explaining the poor sense of community of Vietnamese entrepreneurs in comparison with their colleagues from China and Japan. One reason which has been mentioned regularly is that Vietnamese entrepreneurs have a farmer’s mentality. Also, Vietnam has recently begun to operate the market economy and its entrepreneurs are still immature, lacking capital, management experience and knowledge. Son said that the basic reason stemmed from the educational content and methods in Vietnam. Children learn verses about the sense of community of the Vietnamese people in their struggles against foreign aggressors but they are not educated with the sense of community during national construction and economic development. Vietnam doesn’t provide basic studies to develop a complete education programme on the sense of community for the Vietnamese people yet.

How to improve the sense of community?

Son said that to improve the sense of community among Vietnamese entrepreneurs, Vietnam should develop programmes on capacity building for individual entrepreneurs. When entrepreneurs have financial strength, the establishment of corporations will become easier. The more enterprises develop, the more the sense of community will improve.

With increased number of entrepreneurs with strong financial sources and management skills, a national programme on fostering and developing entrepreneurs will play an important role. Before the issuance of the Enterprise Law, Vietnamese entrepreneurs were not taken into account because they were weak.

The State plays a decisive role in the development of the entrepreneurs’ community. Son said that the State should create favourable conditions for entrepreneurs, developing educational programmes to honour entrepreneurs and a sense of community among them in economic development. In particular, discrimination between private and State-owned enterprises should be removed in considering the contribution of the entrepreneurs’ community to the country’s economic development.

• Lan Anh