Tăng cường hợp tác giữa trường đại học và doanh nghiệp ở hà nội, việt nam nghiên cứu trường hợp của trường đại học lao động – xã hội

STREN GTHEN IN G THE PARTN ERSHIP OF UN IVERSITY AN D
EN TERPRISES IN HA N OI, VIET N AM: THE CASE OF ULSA

A RESEARCH PAPER PRESENTED TO
THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
SOUTHERN LUZON STATE UNIVERSITY, LUCBAN, QUEZON, PHILIPPINES
IN COLLABORATION WITH
THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY, SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DOCTORAL DEGREE
IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

By
NGUYEN XUAN HUONG - RICARDO

July, 2013


ACKN OWLEDGEMEN T

In order to complete this dissertation, I need helps from many people. Their
helps provided the very great contribution to my work. I am deeply indebted to all of
them.
First of all, I wish to thank DR. Cecilia N. Gascon, my advisor. Without her
very useful helps and advices I would not be able to finish my work. Her very high
requirements have encouraged me to try my best.
I also want to thank all my professors and staffs of SOUTHERN LUZON
STATE UNIVERSITY and THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY for their interesting
lectures and helps which provided me necessary knowledge to write this dissertation,
as well as to work in my future.

In order to have a good dissertation with scientific quality and practical
significance, I need to collect some information from employers and graduated
students. Without their very useful ideas and information, my dissertation can not be
completed. I want to give my sincere thanks to them for their valuable cooperation
and kind help
I would like to thank all commentators. Their comments help me to make my
dissertation better.
I need to express my special thanks from bottom of my heart to my passedaway parents who brought me into the world and brought me up. Also, I am indebted
to all members of my family, who kept encouraging and providing me favorable
conditions when I am taking this course.
I am grateful to all my classmates and my friends who help me to collect
materials in the preparation of the dissertation. Their assistance helped me to save my
limited time to focus on writing.
i


Last but not all, I am indebted to many other people. They are writers of useful
materials in books, internet, and newspapers.

Hanoi, 2013.

ii


CON TEN T

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.......................................................................................... i
CONTENT............................................................................................................... iii
ABSTRACT............................................................................................................. vi
ABBREVIATION ................................................................................................... vii

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGRURES .................................................................... viii
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................... 1
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY....................................................................... 3
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM...................................................................... 8
RESEARCH QUESTIONS ................................................................................... 9
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES ................................................................................ 10
HYPOTHESES ................................................................................................... 10
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY ..................................................................... 11
SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY................................................. 12
DEFINITION OF TERMS .................................................................................. 13
CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE......................................... 16
1. EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH OF UNIVERSITY – ENTERPRISE
RELATIONSHIP ................................................................................................ 16
2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK................................................................... 28
3. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK.................................................................... 33
CHAPTER III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .................................................... 39
1. RESEARCH DESIGN.................................................................................... 39
2. POPULATION AND SAMPLING DESIGN .................................................. 40
3. RESEARCH INSTRUMENT ......................................................................... 42

iii


4. DATA GATHERING PROCEDURE ............................................................. 44
5. DATA PROCESSING METHOD .................................................................. 45
CHAPTER IV. PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF
DATA ..................................................................................................................... 46
1. PROFILE OF ULSA....................................................................................... 46
2. POLICIES RELATING TO UNIVERSITY - ENTERPRISE PARTNERSHIP 48
3. DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION ............................................. 49

3.1. Basic characteristics of respondents .................................................... 49
3.2. Job history of graduated students......................................................... 51
3.3. Experiences of enterprises with relation to ULSA ............................... 53
3.4. Working weaknesses of students ......................................................... 55
3.5. Ability and experiences of enterprises in cooperation with universities 59
3.6. Potential opportunities for ULSA in cooperation with enterprises........ 64
3.7. Solutions for strengthening the cooperation between ULSA and
enterprises ................................................................................................... 67
3.7.1.

Ensure harmonious benefits for enterprises................................... 67

3.7.2.

Acknowledge the contribution by enterprises................................ 71

3.7.3.

Supplementary solutions............................................................... 72

4. SUMMARY ................................................................................................... 73
CHAPTER V. SUMMARY, FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS AND
RECOMMENDATIONS......................................................................................... 74
1. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS .......................................................................... 74
2. CONCLUSION .............................................................................................. 77
3. RECOMMENDATION .................................................................................. 78
3.1. Proposed cooperating framework ........................................................ 79

iv

3.2. Improving training curricula and changing teaching methods .............. 80
3.3. Devoting more resources to create and maintain the partnership with
enterprises ................................................................................................... 82
3.4. Ensuring harmonious cooperating benefits for enterprises ................... 83
3.5. Acknowledge the contribution by enterprises ...................................... 84
3.6. Create “formal” partnership with enterprises ....................................... 84
3.7. Cooperate with other universities for strengthening university-enterprise
cooperation.................................................................................................. 85
4. LIMITATION AND FURTHER STUDY....................................................... 85
BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................... ix
APPENDICES ........................................................................................................xiv
1. LETTER OF INVITATION TO PARTICIPATE IN THE SURVEY...................xiv
2. QUESTIONNAIRE FOR LEADER OF ENTERPRISE........................................xv
3. QUESTIONNAIRE FOR GRADUATED STUDENTS OF ULSA ......................xxi
4. SURVEYED RESULTS OF LEADERS OF ENTERPRISES............................xxvi
5. SURVEYED RESULTS OF GRADUATED STUDENTS ..............................xxxvi
6. CURRICULUM VITAE.................................................................................... xlvi

v


ABSTRACT

Creating and strengthening university – enterprise partnership is a very
important solution for universities to archive the goal “raising the training quality to
meet labour demands for the socio-economic development…”.
This paper presented potential opportunities as well as solutions for University
of Labour and Social affairs (ULSA) to strengthen its long-term partnership with
enterprises. It can be said that universities in the economic and social field can

maintain partnership with enterprises in many activities if having appropriate
cooperating policies. Of all proposed solutions for strengthening the partnership with
enterprises, the most important one is that universities should ensure harmonious
cooperating benefits for enterprises.

vi


ABBREVIATION

ULSA: University of Labour and Social affairs
CEO: Chief Executive Officer
CRM: Customer relationship management
EUE-Net:

European

Programme

of

Entrepreneur’s

mobility

within

Universities
MOET: Ministry of Education and Training
MOLISA: Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social affairs

vii


LIST OF TABLES AN D FIGRURES
Table 1. Kinds of enterprises ................................................................................... 14
Table 2. Types of CRM ........................................................................................... 29
Table 3. Population and sample of the study............................................................ 41
Table 4. Contents in the questionnaire for CEOs...................................................... 42
Table 5. Contents in the questionnaire for graduated students .................................. 43
Table 6. General information of surveyed leaders and enterprises............................ 49
Table 7. General information of graduated students ................................................. 50
Table 8. Reasons for not-employing bachelors graduated from ULSA ..................... 54
Table 9. Activities that enterprises have ever cooperated with universities............... 61
Table 10. Activities that enterprises will be willing to cooperate with ULSA........... 64
Table 11. Solutions to ensure harmonious benefits for enterprises ........................... 67

Figure 1. QCi model of CRM .................................................................................. 30
Figure 2. The CRM value chain............................................................................... 31
Figure 3. The Payne’s five-process model of CRM.................................................. 31
Figure 4. The Gartner competency model of CRM .................................................. 33
Figure 5. University-enterprise relationship ............................................................. 35
Figure 6. Conceptual framework.............................................................................. 37
Figure 7. Job characteristics of graduated students................................................... 52
Figure 8. Working weaknesses of bachelors graduated from ULSA......................... 56
Figure 9. Solutions to acknowledge the contribution by enterprises (Unit: %).......... 71
Figure 10. Cooperating framework for ULSA.......................................................... 79

viii

CHAPTER I
IN TRODUCTION

In the Strategy for Education development of Vietnam in 2011-2020, the
Government exposed seven limitations in the current educational system of Vietnam.
This showed that Vietnamese educational quality is low, contents are heavily
theoretical, and universities have not changed much into training based on demands of
the society (Vietnamese Government, 2012, pp. 4-5). In this Strategy, developmental
goal for vocational and university training is that “raising the training quality to meet
labour demands for the socio-economic development…” (Vietnamese Government,
2012, p. 9). To achieve this goal, Vietnamese universities need to fulfill many
activities for improving their training programs, of which, creating and maintaining a
close partnership with employers is an important one.
Employers are regarded as “indirect” customers of universities because they
do not “buy” training services (main products of universities) provided by universities
but they “buy” working ability of graduates. That means they will buy the “outcomes”
of training services. Thus, if employers do not hire graduates because they have
inappropriate working ability, it may be worthless for students to take training courses
provided by universities. For this reason, universities should create and maintain
relationship with employers to collect information about labour markets, such as
which skills and knowledge employers want employees to be trained, future. Basing
on the collected information, universities can change their contents of training
programs, teaching methods, and so on, in such a way that provide knowledge and
skills that are most-needed for students. By doing so, it will be easy for their
graduated students to find jobs in which they can apply what they have been trained.

1

Thus, we can say that it is very important for universities to manage a good
partnership with employers, of which most are enterprises. However, very few
Vietnamese universities have regular relationships with enterprises. It is not unknown
that Vietnamese education in general and at university level in particular has many
weaknesses. One of these weaknesses is that graduated students lack skills and
knowledge required in labour markets. There are many reasons for this weakness. One
of which is the old way of thinking. Many universities think that they can teach what
they want and students must study what they provide. Moreover, most Vietnamese
universities focus too much on the short-term goal that is to attract students taking
their current training programs, but too little on the whether students can find job after
graduation. As a result, universities do not often pay much attention on the
relationship with employers because this needs time and money. With regard to
Vietnamese enterprises, most of them are not interested in making relationship with
university because they gain very few benefits from this relationship
University of Labour and Social affairs (ULSA) is a state university under the
control of the Ministry of Labour, Invalids, and Social affairs of Vietnam. It has for
training programs at the bachelor level1. They are Human resource management,
Accounting, Insurance, and Social work. Annually, about two thousand students
graduate from the university. The statistical data of the university show that only
about 70% of graduated students can find jobs within a year since the point they
receive the bachelor degree, and of which, less than 50% can find jobs in the fields
they studied. Most graduates, including those having jobs in their studying fields,
gave the feedback that many topics they had studied were unuseful for their work and
they needed to be retrained when starting their jobs. This shows that current training

1

The university will start the fifth program (business administration) in October, 2013.

2

programs of the university are somewhat inappropriate with demands of labour
markets. There are some reasons for this problem but the main one is there is almost
no participation of employers in designing training programs of ULSA. The university
does not have any network of cooperating employers. When the university designing
or adjusting training programs, normally, there were only one or two representatives
of employers. Moreover, drafts of training programs were given to them just at the
beginnings of meetings. In addition, these drafts consisted of only names of subjects
in training programs without detailed description of contents in each subject. Hence,
their ideas about training programs did not contain much value.
The last survey undertaken by ULSA to collect information about labour
demands and comments on its training programs was in 2005 with the participation of
about three hundred employers. Since then, the university has adjusted its training
programs several times without the involvement of employers. As we mentioned
above, this is one (main) reason why its training programs are somewhat
inappropriate, and, as a result, why its graduated students face some difficulties in
finding jobs.
Realizing the importance of the ULSA’s partnership with employers, I choose
the topic “Strengthening the Partnership of University and Enterprises in Ha N oi,
Viet N am: The Case of ULSA” for my dissertation topic. I hope it can make some
small contributions for the future development of the university.
BACKGROUN D OF THE STUDY
In modern business philosophy, the customer is regarded as the only boss of
any organization. Producers should produce and sell products or services that are most
appropriate to customers’ demands. All decisions of firms should be made in order to
attain the ultimate goal. That is to meet customers’ needs. Or, in the other word, we

3

can say that firms should try their best to satisfy their customers’ desires. In order to
achieve this goal, organizations should create and manage a good relationship with
their customers.
Although the term “customer relationship management” (CRM) has been used
since the early 1990s, recently, it receives more and more attentions by not only firms
but also many other kinds of organizations. CRM is an integrated approach to
identifying, acquiring, and retaining customers. By enabling organizations to manage
and coordinate customer interactions across multiple channels, departments, lines of
business, and geographies, CRM helps organizations maximize the value of every
customer interaction and drive superior corporate performance. (Buttle, 2009, p. 4).
University can be thought as a “special” kind of business. For universities,
there are two groups of customers. The first group consists of students who are
immediate customers and directly contact and buy training services provided by
universities. As we mentioned above, universities should provide those training
services, namely knowledge and skills, that students most want to receive. However,
students do not “consume” training services as “final goods” but as “intermediate
goods”. That means they absorb training services provided by universities for creating
their “working ability”, and then they will sell it to employers. Thus, universities can
be regarded as intermediaries between students and employers. In reality, students are
young and have very little information about labour markets. Very often, students do
not know what employers want them to do, or, in the other word, which skills and
knowledge they should receive when studying in universities. Thus, what students
want to study may probably not be coincident with what they should study. If
universities provide only knowledge and skills that students want, in the short-run,
they will attract many students to participate in their training courses. However, in the

4

long-run, fewer and fewer students will enter these universities if what they provide to
students (also what student want to study) are not fit for what employers want them to
study. Or we can say that students will not want to take training courses provided by
those universities if they can not find jobs in the future.
The second group of customers of universities consists of all kinds of
employers, including firms, government agencies or any organizations. Sometimes,
employers can be directly buy services provided by universities, such as technical
advices. However, normally, this group is considered as “indirect” or “ultimate”
customers of universities.
Universities should create and maintain relationship with employers to collect
information about labour markets, such as which skills and knowledge employers
want employees to be trained, future. Basing on the collected information, universities
can change their contents of training programs, teaching methods, and so on, in such a
way that provide knowledge and skills that are most-needed for students. By doing so,
it will be easy for their graduated students to find jobs in which they can apply what
they have been trained.
Relationship or linkage between universities and enterprises is a topic which
has been studied by some foreign as well as Vietnamese researchers. This topic has
often been examined in one of three approaches. In the first approach, universities
were regarded as the main beneficiary from the relationship, in which they received
information from enterprises for improving their training services. Conversely, in the
second approach, enterprises were regarded as the main beneficiary from the
relationship, in which they received advices, advanced technologies and so on from
universities for improving their businesses. In the third approach, enterprises and
universities are supposed to be mutually equal beneficiaries from the relationship.

5


This relationship will become a partnership. In addition, the topic can be examined at

international, national or provincial levels. Following, we will briefly review some
research results about the topic.
In the article “Training association between universities and enterprises in
Vietnam” presented in the scientific journal of Ha Noi National University, volume
24., Trinh Thi Hoa Mai discussed about objective demands to associate with each
other by both universities and enterprises. In this paper, she proposed eight
recommendations for universities and enterprises to promote their association, such as
designing curriculums, creating a network of former students, and enterprises
involving in deciding marks to students, etc. However, this paper lacked evidence to
support some arguments.
The final report (2010) of the EUE-Net (European University Enterprise
Network), the project funded with support from the European Commission, had four
main objectives, of which the first one was “Increasing the presence of the
entrepreneurs within the University by design, experiment and promotion of
innovative mobility schemes involving entrepreneurs” (EUE-Net, 2008, p.5). This
project produced eleven formal outcomes, including those relating to the development
of framework documents at European level such as Quality of Practical Placements in
Enterprises (WP1), EUE-Net CDO Sub-Network and European unified employment
database (WP2), Teaching and learning Entrepreneurship in Europe as a general
competence (WP3) and the organization of an Workshop on “Entrepreneurship
mobility” that resulted in a set of Guidelines for a European Programme of
Entrepreneur’s mobility within Universities (EUE-Net, 2008, p.11).
In the dissertation named “The relationship between enterprises and
universities/ research institutes: A study in Vietnam” in 2010 by Nguyen Thi Thu

6


Hang in the doctoral course provided by the University of Technology belonging to
the National University of Ho Chi Minh city, she surveyed 269 managers of

enterprises, 32 leaders of universities, and 40 leaders of research institutes in Ho Chi
Minh city. The main objective of this dissertation is to identify factors that affect the
relationship between enterprises and universities/ research institutes, and benefits
enterprises can get from the relationship. In this dissertation, she exposed 15 factors
affecting the relationship between enterprises and universities, and 10 factors
affecting the relationship between enterprises and research institutes, including those
have positive effects and those have negative effects on these relationships. She also
proposed some sets of solutions for developing the cooperation between enterprises
and universities/ research institutes. These proposed solutions were acceptable.
Limitations of this dissertation included the low validity of generalization because the
survey was undertaken only in Ho Chi Minh city and the absence of effects of macro
variables.
As far as I know, in Vietnam, there have been very few researches about
opportunities and areas in which universities can create the relationship with
enterprises in order to improve their training “quality”. In the other word, very few
researches indicated answer for whether enterprises are willing to help universities
and what they want to receive in return. In addition, the results have a low validity
level of generalization.
In June, 2012, ULSA exposed the Mission “to provide high-quality training
‘products’, contributing to

the development

of the

human resource for

industrialization, modernization, and globalization of Vietnam”. In order to execute
this mission, as well as for the long-term development of ULSA, the university has
planned many things to do. One of which is to improve its training programs in such a

7


way that based on demands of labour markets by creating and maintaining a good
partnership with employers. In this partnership, both parties are mutually benefited.
STATEMEN T OF THE PROBLEM
In some previous paragraphs, we saw that ULSA has a very weak relationship
with enterprises. The university has not undertaken any surveys to collect information
from employers about labour demands in order to perfect its training programs. On
the contrary, contents of its training programs were decided basing mainly of what it
could provide. In addition, most of its students had no opportunities to participate in
practical visits to enterprises or to fulfill trials when studying in the university. These
can be some of main reasons why its graduated students faced difficulties in finding
jobs.
The research problem in this dissertation can be stated as follow:
ULSA’s weak partnership with enterprises leads to the incompatibility
between what their graduates have studied and what they need for job.
This research problem comes from current situation of ULSA. More than
ninety percent of ULSA’s graduates said that lacked practical skills and knowledge,
and about the same number said that they had low ability in using foreign languages
for their jobs.
Although there were some researches about improving university-enterprise
linkage/ relationship, they often studied universities in general, not any specific one.
Moreover, there were very few researches about university-enterprise partnership (not
relationship). Beside that, each university has its own conditions and may have
different training ologies. Some solutions to improve university-enterprise linkage
proposed in previous researches may be useful for many universities but may
probably unuseful for ULSA. In addition, ULSA’s graduated students can work for

8


any kind of employers. However, about than ninety percents of them worked for
enterprises. Thus, in this dissertation, the ULSA-enterprise partnership, not the
partnership with employers in general, is chosen to study.
RESEARCH QUESTION S
In order to solve the problems stated in this dissertation, we are going to
answer following questions:
First, is there any opportunity for ULSA to cooperate with enterprises in order
to raise its training quality?
For this question, we will try to find out whether enterprises are willing to
cooperate with and help the university to improve its training services.
Second, in which areas can ULSA develop a good partnership with
enterprises?
Answers for this question are those activities in which ULSA can cooperate
with enterprises and take advantages for its operation.
Third, which solutions can ULSA use to improve its partnership with
enterprises?
For this question, we will try to find out what enterprises want to receive in the
cooperation with ULSA in exchange for helping the university to raise it training
quality. In the other word, we will determine which policies that ULSA can use to
attract enterprises to participate in a permanent relationship with it.
Forth, can ULSA raise it training quality through creating, maintaining and
taking advantages of its partnership with enterprises?
In this question, we will focus on finding whether it is easier for ULSA’s
graduated students to find their jobs; whether enterprises set a priority to hire ULSA’s
graduated students if the university has a good partnership with them.

9

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
The main objective of this study is to develop strategies that will strengthen
the partnership of ULSA and enterprises in Hanoi that will improve the training
quality provided by the university. Specifically, the study sought to:
•

Characterize and analyze the internal and external factors affecting the

quality of trainings provided by ULSA
•

Identify, define and analyze the mismatch of the training courses provided

by ULSA with what is needed by the industries
•

to identify approaches that will increase the training quality provided by

ULSA
HYPOTHESES
Because ULSA has not had any real “partnership” with enterprises, in this
dissertation, we can not collect pre and after data. Thus, we can not apply testing
techniques to hypothesis. However, we can use comparative tools to prove hypothesis.
In order to answers research questions for attaining research objectives, we will try to
prove following hypotheses:
•

Enterprises are eager to cooperate with ULSA if they can benefit from this

cooperation
This hypothesis will be proven is we can find out that a large percentage of
(surveyed) enterprises are willing to cooperate with ULSA.
•

It will be easier for ULSA’s graduated students to find jobs if the

university has a good partnership with enterprises.
This hypothesis will be proven is we can find out that (a large percentage of
surveyed) enterprises are willing to employ graduates from ULSA if the university
has a good partnership with them.

10


•

Getting money is not the main motive of enterprises when helping ULSA

improve training quality.
This hypothesis will be proven is we can find out that the percentage of
(surveyed) enterprises want to get money from the partnership with ULSA is much
less than the percentage of enterprises want to get other (non-financial) benefits.
SIGN IFICAN CE OF THE STUDY
This study will show the analysis of the current training quality of ULSA. In
the analysis, we will identify causes that lead to (probably) low training quality of
ULSA. We also specify areas in which ULSA can develop and maintain the
partnership with enterprises to raise its training quality. Moreover, in the study, a set
of recommendations will be proposed for encouraging enterprises to cooperate with

the university, as well as recommendations for improving this relationship. Thus, the
study will be significant for following beneficiaries.
First, ULSA can directly receive great benefits from results of this study. Its
can get updated surveyed information about jobs of its graduated students and what
they want to change in ULSA’s training programs. The university can also get
information about whether enterprises are eager to cooperate with it and what
activities they are willing to cooperate. More important, the university can think of
proposed recommendations as the reference for improving its future training quality.
Second, its current and future students are the next beneficiaries. If the
university has a better relationship with enterprises, its students will receive training
programs which are more appropriate to demands of labour markets and enterprises
will participate more in training processes. As a result, certainly, it will be easier for
graduated students to find jobs conformable to their studied specialty.
Third, enterprises can gain benefits from the partnership with ULSA. By

11


cooperating with the university, they will receive favourable policies. In addition,
enterprises can save time and money spending on retraining ULSA’s graduated
students because they have received training programs designed based on demands of
labour markets.
Forth, other universities and people can use this dissertation as a reference if
they are interested in the topic.
Last, by doing this dissertation, the author have an opportunity get improve his
knowledge about the topic as well as his research competence. And the most
importance, the author will complete his fulfillment in order to get a doctoral degree
in business administration.
SCOPE AN D LIMITATION S OF THE STUDY
Scope

•

Content boundary: The university-enterprise relationship contains many

different aspects/ activities. In some aspects, enterprises can directly benefit from the
relationship, but in some other aspects universities can be direct beneficiaries. In this
dissertation, we will focus mainly on aspects of the partnership that ULSA can take
advantages for raising its training quality. Benefits that enterprises can gain from the
partnership will be regarded as solutions that ULSA should realize. Moreover,
although ULSA has training programs at many levels, including master, university,
college, and technical levels, in this dissertation, we focus only on university training
because this is the major training activity of the university.
•

Location: Hanoi, Vietnam

•

Time: 2009-2011.

•

Subjects: Leaders of enterprises and ULSA’s graduated students

12


Limitations
The dissertation has some limitations as follows:
•

The research period is quite short (only three years) because the first

university students graduated from ULSA in 2009.
•

ULSA has only training programmes in social fields. Thus, results can be

most useful for universities having training programmes in the same fields. Other
universities can use these results only as reference.
DEFIN ITION OF TERMS
In this dissertation, we examine the partnership between ULSA and
enterprises for raising its training quality. In order to achieve research objectives,
some key terms need to be clarified.
Partnership is a contractual relationship between two or more parties (can be
organizations or individuals) in order to carry on joint activities.
University is an educational organization (including a set of colleges,
universities, research institutes in different fields) which provides training
programmes in higher education (Law on Higher education of Vietnam, article 4).
Enterprise means an economic organization having its own name, having
assets and a stable transaction office, and having business registration in accordance
with law for the purpose of conducting business operations (Law on Enterprise of
Vietnam).
In Vietnam, enterprises are classified into four kinds as follows:

13


Table 1. Kinds of enterprises
Very small

Small
N o. of
N o. of
Field
labour
labour
Capital*
force
force
I. Agriculture,
10 or less Equal or
From 11 to
forestry, and
people
less than 20 200 people
aquiculture
billions
VND
II. Industry and
10 or less Equal or
From 11 to
construction
people
less than 20 200 people
billions
VND
III. Trading and
10 or less Equal or
From 11 to
services

people
less than 10 50 people
billions
VND
Source: Decree No.56/2009/NĐ-CP

Medium
N o. of
labour
Capital
force
More than From 201 to
300 people
20 to 100
billions
VND
More than From 201 to
20 to 100
300 people
billions
VND
More than From 51 to
10 to 50
100 people
billions
VND

* Capital is the preferred classified criterion
Enterprises not belonging to those three kinds are group into “large” enterprises
Very small and small enterprises are sometimes added up into one kind, namely

“small”
Training or training process is a purposive, organized process for shaping and
developing knowledge, skills, techniques, attitudes, behavious, and etc. in theoretical
and practical aspects in order to create ability for individuals for fulfilling a certain
work. In the other word, training process is systematic process for providing
knowledge, skills, and etc. in a specific program to trainees (Tiep, 2008).
In the third national workshop about improving training quality of Vietnam in
June, 2002, Doctor Vu Kim Dung presented a summary of university training quality.
He mentioned three points of views about training quality. The first one is that
training quality is evaluated by "inputs". According to this point of view, a university
will have a good/ high training quality if it has high-quality "inputs". Some important
“inputs” are excellent students, professional and prestigious training staffs, sufficient

14


resource of finance to invest in teaching facilities, plentiful and qualified (Dung,
2002).
The second point of view is that training quality is evaluated by "outcomes".
Outcomes are “products” of training services. Quality of “outcomes” is considered as
the ability of graduates to fulfill their works and it will be evaluated by employers
(Dung, 2002).
The third point of view is that training quality is evaluated by "academic
values". This is a traditional point of view shared by many western universities.
According to this point of view, training quality is determined mainly by the
evaluation of specialists about “academic ability” of training staffs (Dung, 2002).
In Decision No. 65/2007/QĐ-BGDĐT dated Nov, 1st, 2007 signed by the
Mister of the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam (MOET), training
quality of university is defined as gaining objectives set by the university, meeting
objectives of university training stipulated in the Education Law, fitting with demands

of human resources for the local and national socio-economic development. This
definition is compatible with that given by the international educational quality
accreditation of university. The Decision also stipulated ten “standards”, including
many criteria relating to aspects of all three points of views mentioned above.
The main purpose of this dissertation is to find solutions for raising ULSA’s
training quality by improving its partnership with enterprises. For this purpose, I
choose to follow the “outcome” point of view about training quality. In this
dissertation, training quality of a university is defined as a compound index about the
working competence and the ability to apply studied knowledge in wok of its
graduated students. The competence and ability will be evaluated and recognized by
employers.

15


CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter presents the review of theoretical and research literature on
university-enterprise relationship that served as the foundation for the study. We will
start with the review of some experimental researches about university-enterprise
relationship. In the next section, we will review some theoretical framework for
university-enterprise relationship. And the last section will present the conceptual
framework of the study.

1.

EXPERIMEN TAL RESEARCH OF UN IVERSITY – EN TERPRISE
RELATION SHIP
University-enterprise relationship is a topic studied by researchers in many

countries, including Vietnam. Certainly, both universities and enterprises can get
some benefits when cooperating with each other. However, this topic has often been
examined in one of three approaches. In the first approach, universities were regarded
as the main beneficiary from the relationship, in which they received information
from enterprises for improving their training services. Conversely, in the second
approach, enterprises were regarded as the main beneficiary from the relationship, in
which they received advices, advanced technologies and so on from universities for
improving their businesses. In the third approach, enterprises and universities are
supposed to be mutually equal beneficiaries from the relationship. We can see that
only in the third approach, the relationship/ linkage between university and enterprise
can be regarded as a partnership.

16