School of Politics and International Studies

Technology-Upgrading Approach for Late Industrialised Economy: The Case of Vietnam’s Information Technology Industrial Policy

The research intends to answer three main questions;

1. Using the case of Vietnam’s information technology (hereafter IT) as a unit of analysis, what are Vietnam’s industrial development choices that create the Vietnamese industrial development paths?

   To answer this research question, there are 7 sub-questions that this research are trying to find answers which will allow the research to map out all the components that define 'Vietnam’s industrial development choices'.

   1. What were the approaches from the state to start up IT industry?
   2. What are the state’s strategies to develop IT industry?
   3. Though what means or instruments that the state implement their strategies (from the previous question)?
   4. What are technology choices that the state has chosen to promote the development of IT industry?
   5. How does the Vietnam IT industry connect to industrial financiers?
   6. How does the Vietnam IT industry connect to a market at international level?
   7. Who are the actors in Vietnam’s national R&D system, and how these actors nurture the development of Vietnam’s technology capacities to be use in developing IT industry?

2. How do Vietnam’s industrial development paths (findings from research question (1)) affect the trajectory and the stage of Vietnam’s technology-upgrading approach?

3. What does the development of Vietnam’s IT industry mean for Vietnam’s industrialisation and modernisation?

Focusing on these three questions enables the research to analyse the impact of being a small state with a unique political-economic regime on the technology-upgrading approach of a lateindustrialising country. Vietnam is a case study representing the small state with a distinctive mixed economy known as the socialist-market economy, and its information technology industry (IT) is selected as a unit of analysis representing a high technology-based industry

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