Foreign Market Entry Mode and Performance: Vietnam’s Small and Medium Enterprises as a Case for Building Conceptual Framework for Future Research

Abstract

This research paper aims to investigate the specific relationship between the eclectic model, the chief executive officer (CEO) characteristics, the entry mode choice and organizational performance in a case of Vietnam’s small and medium enterprises and it attempts to predict the entry mode of Vietnam’s small and medium enterprises by the given factors followed by the explanation of organizational performance resulted from the selected choice of entry mode. As a conceptual paper, this paper reviews a wide range of literature on the selected variables in order to form a conceptual framework. As such the paper proposes 11 propositions that Ownership Advantages attributes (Experiences of firm and Asset specificity), Location Advantages attributes (Investment risk and Market potential) and CEO characteristics attributes (Position tenure of CEO, Functional background of CEO and International experience of CEO) could have a positive association with entry mode and have a positive association with organizational performance attributes (Financial and Non-financial). The contribution of this paper is to encourage the decision making of choice of foreign market entry mode of Vietnam’s small and medium enterprises.