The Role of Knowledge on ASEAN Economic Community in Enhancing the Performance of Vietnamese Enterprises

ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) was established in 2015 from 10 countries to realize the ultimate (adopted in 1997), which aimed to transform ASEAN into a stable, prosperous, and highly competitive region with equitable economic development, reduced poverty, and socioeconomic disparities. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of knowledge level on the AEC of Vietnamese small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the textile and apparel industry towards attitudes, readiness, and performance. This study uses convenience sampling to get questionnaires from 150 SMEs in Hanoi, Vietnam. Then, the paper applies SPSS-AMOS 24 to process data. The empirical results show that AEC’s implementation only has a small impact on improving SME performance. However, SMEs have adequate knowledge, attitude, and readiness about AEC. The structural modeling findings indicate that the knowledge factor has an indirect effect on SMEs’ performance. This finding is to provide new insight into the roles of attitude and readiness in the case of Vietnam. These factors are needed to mediate the effect of attitudes and readiness in the relationship between knowledge and business performance, a framework strategy of business organizations, and can be used as a conceptual model to improve SMEs’ performance.