Abstract
Vietnam’s past economic growth has relied on rapid investment, cheap labour, and intensiveuse of available natural resources such as energy and other environmental goods. Relatively little
attention has been directed towards investing in science and technology improvements, developing a
skilled workforce to support future prosperity. The resulting economic growth has come at costs
associated with widespread environmental problems undermining the productivity of many key
regional industries. Taking the Mekong Delta region as an example and case study, regional prosperity
appears trapped in a web of structural, political, and regulatory inertia. This inertia inhibits the
disadvantaged region from modernising by adopting industrial policies that could support local
prosperity and address regional problems, thus undermining their regional competitive advantage.
This thesis posits that incumbent institutions do not appear to be up to the key challenges
affecting regional industries and raises the question of whether Tertiary Education (TE) institutions
could play a greater role in addressing various local challenges. Raising the question within the applied
and realistic contexts, the thesis focuses on selected coordination failures surrounding the aquaculture
and seafood industries in the Mekong Delta region. These failures influence seafood export
performance, and its vulnerability if the determinants of competitive advantage are not addressed. The
initial premise of the thesis is that the question of whether TE could play a greater role in tackling the
various challenges presented in upcoming chapters has not been systematically examined. This
premise suggests that developing a framework integrating aspects of economic thinking is necessary
to ascertain how TE could play such a role. Additionally, it aims to investigate the viewpoints of
various industry and sectoral stakeholders regarding the nature of those challenges and whether TE is
well-placed to address some of them.
The economic policy issues, which must be considered when attempting to boost the
competitiveness of export-intensive industries, are numerous and inter-related but are often
approached separately, hence underscoring the necessity for a comprehensive framework. This thesis
reveals that the coordination failures exist in domains where TE both has an existing footprint and
have a greater impact if those aspects were framed together and approached at the regional scale. The
main platform for examining the TE role in sectoral restructuring are the domestic TE institutions,
which already play crucial roles in reducing dependency on foreign control of technology, such as
R&D investments. Moreover, they contribute to the sector by developing human capital, and
improving State governance.
The literature review chapters examine the topics of consideration for addressing the research
question, with a number of sub-questions identified. Subsequently, the empirical study employs a
qualitative approach to investigate stakeholder perceptions on the contribution of TE to the industry
based on participant interviews. To compensate for the practical difficulties that emerged during
Covid-19, it compares similar sets of information from diverse informants, exploring the similarities
and differences in stakeholder perspectives and beliefs. This analysis identifies potential policy
approaches involving TE to tackle the significant coordination challenges (market and government
failures) encountered within the sector.
The findings reveal that seafood industry faces numerous challenges, primarily arising from
the lingering transition to intensive farming practices. In addition, there has been insufficient
investment in technological development, human capital, and state governance arrangements. The TE
sector slowly reacts and weakly contributes to the overall seafood industry’s development, primarily
because of persistent issues affecting its relationship with industry and government. Instead of
proactively attempting to address critical coordination failures or actively conducting applied research
endorsed by the sector, many universities and VET schools develop and maintain their teaching
mandates and priorities to ensure a steady stream of funding.
| Date of Award | 2024 |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Supervisor | Pascal Tremblay (Supervisor), Rolf Gerritsen (Supervisor) & Maneka Jayasinghe (Supervisor) |