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BACKGROUND
1. Necessity of the study
Surugiu (2009) unveiled that tourism significantly affects the foreign
exchange flow, infrastructure development, management technique and training
experience as well as other economic sectors, actively contributing to the socio-
economic development of a country. Tasci &Knutson's study (2004) specified that
not only in the developed countries, tourism is known as an increasingly developed
industry both in developing countries and underdeveloped countries. Tourism's fast
growth is recently recorded and acknowledged as the key economic sector of the
country. Tourism activities are eventfully carried out from cities to rural areas, from
coastal and island area to mountainous area and highland. According to Phuong Lien
(2017), Vietnam tourism was recorded with 13 million and 74 million of turns of
international tourists and domestic tourists, increase in 30% and 20%, respectively.
Total direct income from tourism hit over VND 500,000 billion, equivalent to US$ 23
billion, contributing approximately 7.5% to GDP of Vietnam.
Tourism development facilitates the rural and urban appearance
improvement, generating more jobs for the residential classes and the society.
Vietnamese business environment has been perfected for the tourism fussinesses to
develop tourism as the key economic sector even though Vietnam tourism has just
started since opening door policy since 1991. However, Vietnam tourism
development is also recorded with non-sustainability and a series of weakness
against that in other regional countries. Tourism is still recognized as a young
player. The business environment is often impacted by the globalization factors;
hence, tourism business environment is still available with an ocean of
shortcomings, adversely affecting the tourism business performance. Furthermore,
Vu Khac Chuong (2015) emphasized that: Any country which joins this process
shall become prosperous and civilized, vice versa, those reject it shall be subject to
poverty and backward.
It is essential to investigate business environment in the cut-throat competition
context of newly-born service industry to find out the feasible solutions to perfect the
business environment for tourism enterprises. That is why, the “Perfecting the
business environment for Vietnamese tourism enterprises during globalization”
topic selected for the study.
2. Tasks and objectives
2.1. Research tasks:
The research tasks are originated from the above objectives, including:
- Determine theoretical basis on business environment’s impact on
bussiness;
- Investigate the existing conditions of business environment of available
Vietnamese tourism enterprises;
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- Verify the impact of business environment on business performance of
Vietnamese tourism enterprises.
- Propose the solutions to perfect the business environment of Vietnamese
tourism enterprises.
2.2. Objectives
Originated from the research tasks, the dissertation’s specific research
objectives include:
- Develop the analysis model of business environment impact on business
of Vietnamese tourism enterprises versus the research assumption system;
- Propose and recommend the solutions to perfect the business environment
of Vietnamese tourism enterprises.
3. Research questions
According to the research objectives, the research questions are set forth as
follows:
- What are the affecting models of business environment factors on
enterprise business?
How do factors in business environment affect Vietnam tourism
enterprises?
- Which possible solutions and recommendations are feasible to perfect the
business environment of Vietnamese tourism enterprises?
4. Subjects and scope of the research
4.1. Subjects of research
The study’s subjects cover business environment of tourism enterprises.
4.2. Scope of research
The dissertation studies the business environment of tourism enterprises
during globalization process. However, there are many approaches to enterprise’s
business environment by different classification such as components, impact levels
to enterprise’s business and business process. Within this dissertation, the
constituent-based approach to business environment is selected by the author.
Accordingly, the business environment shall be studied by specific factors as
follows: economic environment, legal environment, socio-economic environment,
political environment, technology environment, ecology environment and global
environment.
The study is also focused on macro environment study, rather than in-depth
study on industrial environment and business environment, to make contributions
to the State management authorities to successfully control the tourism
management policies.
Scope of venue: Study at tourism enterprises in Vietnam (focusing on main
cities such as Hanoi, Hai Phong, Hue, Da Nang, Ho Chi Minh City).
Scope of time: Data are collected in the period of 2010-2017
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5. Research methodology
In order to launch the study, a series of basic research methodologies are
applied, concretely: Desk research methodology, synthesis and analysis
methodology, comparison methodology, dialectic logical methodology, statistics
methodology, etc., especially, the econometric model is also employed. Such
research methodologies are applied to collect and process:
(1) Secondary data, including: Literature review, theoretical basis on
enterprise’s business environment, constituents of business environment, tourism
enterprise's business, experience in perfecting business environment in the regional
countries, concept on globalization, characteristics and nature of globalization,
existing conditions of Vietnam tourism business, impacts of Vietnam tourism
industry's business environment, etc. Secondary data is collected through books,
newspapers, reports, course books, magazines, Internet, etc., provided by Vietnam
National Administration of Tourism, the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO),
tourism managers and researchers.
(2) Quantitative research and qualitative research methodologies are
combined. Concretely:
- Quantitative research:
Group discussion and direct interview with the tourism experts, administrators
and officials working in the departments and industries to design, develop and adjust
the scale to ensure the content value for the qualitative research.
- Qualitative research:
+ Apply the survey method by delivering the questionnaire to collect the
primary data from the subjects of the research, i.e., the administrators in Vietnam
tourism enterprises.
+ Analyze the statistics with SPSS 20 software to evaluate the impacts of
business environment factors on Vietnamese tourism enterprises’ performance.
6. New contributions of the Dissertation
6.1. Academic and theoretical contributions
By studying over 120 documents related to business environment, tourism,
and academic, new contributions of the dissertation are recorded:
- Design the new research model in good harmony with theoretical system
to explain the relations between the business environment factor with business
performance of tourism enterprises.
- Design the questionnaires with scientific basis and reliability to collect the
primary data to verify the relation between the business environment factors and
business performance of tourism enterprises.
- Affirm the business environment factors, i.e., political, economic, ecology,
socio-cultural, technology and global environment (equivalent to positive) affect the
enterprise's business performance. There is insufficient background to confirm the
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relation between the legal environment and business performance of the tourism
industry.
6.2. New recommendations originated from the findings
The analysis of existing conditions of Vietnam tourism enterprise's
business environment unveiled that: The good international environment and
ecological environment actively and significantly affects the tourism enterprise's
business. Good and stable economic environment, political environment,
technology environment actively and significantly affect the technology
environment's business activities. Moreover, no basis is found to conclude that the
stable legal environment actively affects the tourism enterprises’ business even
though the excessive and unplanned tourism exploitation as well as the State
management measures are recorded as the weaknesses of available Vietnamese
tourism enterprises’ business environment. Furthermore, the shortcomings on
disqualified tourism human resources, poor marketing as well as infrastructure and
service physical facilities for the tourism development must be specially concerned.
By analyzing existing conditions of business environment where Vietnamese
tourism enterprises operate and conducting quantitative analysis of relation between
business environment factors and business performance of enterprise, 6 solution groups
are proposed to perfect the tourism enterprise’s business environment in the coming time.
7. Structure
In addition to the background, conclusions, list of references, list of figures
and appendix, the study is divided into 5 chapters:
Chapter 1: Overview of dissertation-related studies
Chapter 2: Literature review on business environment of tourism enterprises
Chapter 3: Research methodology
Chapter 4: Existing conditions of business environment of available Vietnamese
tourism enterprises.
Chapter 5: Solutions to perfect the business environment of Vietnamese tourism
enterprises
CHAPTER 1
LITERATURE REVIEW ON PREVIOUS STUDIES
1.1. Overview of studies
1.1.1. Overview about the studies on globalization
Globalization is a trend that the investment funds and domestic enterprises
are required to overcome the domestic market to successfully penetrate into other
global markets because a better competitive position and lower operating costs are
offered to the organizations to archive the great bulk of products, services and
consumers (Incekara & Mesut 2012, p.23-30).
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1.1.2. Overview about the studies on business environment
Chi (2009, p.545-555) summarized the studies on business environment,
shown in table below:
Author
Contributions
(Duncan 1972,
pg.313-327)
Identify customers, rivals, technology and managers as key
factors of business environment.
(Howard 1979)
Develop the theoretical framework on environment-based
aspects in accordance with two viewpoints on natural
resources and population ecology of the organizations.
(Mintzberg 1979)
Firstly propose a 4D framework, demonstrating the overall
characteristics of business environment: Noteworthy is their
level on diversification, complication, dynamics and
threatening.
(Van Dierdonck &
Miller 1980, pg.37-
46)
Propose a concept model on affiliating the competitive
strategy and design the production management system,
detect the important standby environment, suggest on
significance of considering uncertainty and complication
of environment as context for the operating strategy
(Dess 1984, pg.52-
73)
Propose and test 3 essential characteristics of environment:
Threat, dynamics and complication
(Wernerfelt & Karani
1987, pg.187-194)
Indicate that environment uncertainty is an important issue
and suggest 4 aspects of environment uncertainty: demand,
supply, competition and inclusive unforeseeable cases.
Instability is increasingly high, resulting in more
unforeseeable and dynamic business environment.
(Swamidass &
Neweli 1987,
pg.509-524)
Setup the significance of business environment as a key
causal factor in operating strategy - successfully
connecting with business performance. Prove that the
dynamic environment shall be dynamic for the enterprises
to focus more on flexible production.
(Kotha & Orne 1989,
pg.211-223)
Assume that suppliers, customers and geographical scope are
important factors to master the environmental conditions.
(Ward/Duray…1995,
pg.99-115)
Remarkable impacts of dynamics and disadvantages from
environment with application of competition strategies and
business performance
(Fine 1998)
Business environment condition varies; company chain
and competition priorities must be properly adjusted.
Otherwise, business performance may be adversely