How Does Government Information Access Interplay with Resources of Emerging Market Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises for Innovation? Evidence from Vietnam

Yu Ri Kim and Taewoo Roh ()
Additional contact information
Yu Ri Kim: Asia-Pacific Research Center, Hanyang University, Seoul 04763, Republic of Korea
Taewoo Roh: School of International Studies, Hanyang University, Seoul 04763, Republic of Korea

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 13, 1-19

Abstract: This study integrates the (extended) resource-based view (ERBV/RBV) and non-market strategy (i.e., corporate political activity) to investigate the role of internal and external resources as drivers of innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises in emerging markets (ESMEs). Using primary data from 192 Vietnam SMEs collected between 2014 and 2016, we adopted a partial least square estimation to examine our hypotheses, supplemented by ordinary least square and unobserved heterogeneity tests for robustness. Our PLS-SEM results reveal that firms with intangible resources, from human capital investment to political connections, are more likely to innovate. While the positive effect of human capital investment on innovation is not moderated by government information access, the impact of political connections as an extended resource is significantly enhanced by access to government information. On the other hand, international export experience is not related to innovation by itself, but it is positively moderated by government information access, suggesting that engaging in international markets alone is insufficient. This study contributes to the emerging market literature by examining the effects of intangible resources and political connections on ESMEs’ innovation and highlighting the role of government information as a non-market strategy access in enhancing these relationships.

Keywords: emerging market SMEs; human capital investment; international experience; political connection; government information access; innovation performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/13/5703/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/13/5703/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:13:p:5703-:d:1428436

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().