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1 Introduction
Prior to 1986, the only two legally recognized forms of ownership in Vietnam were state entities and collectives ([12] Le, 2003). However, a major policy transformation commenced in 1986 and the Vietnamese economy was set on a path to becoming more market oriented and embracing the needs of a wide range of sectors. The upshot has been that state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have faced fierce competition from newly emerged enterprises in the form of private, limited liability companies, joint-stock companies, partnerships, joint ventures and 100 percent foreign-owned enterprises ([20] PricewaterhouseCoopers Vietnam, 2008). This situation became more intense when up to half of all SOEs were shown to be loss-making or marginally profitable at best ([9] International Monetary Fund (IMF), 2001). In order to improve the long term status of SOEs, the Government of Vietnam has sought to reform SOEs, by making them more productive and efficient.
Numerous studies have been undertaken into the impacts of this reform and the reform process itself (see, for instance, [22] St John (1997), [25] Vu (2002) and [18] Painter (2003)). Relatively few of these analyses have been empirically based and none have sought to invoke Williamson's transaction cost economics (TCE) as the theoretical foundation. What sets this study apart from earlier work is its focus on organizational integration and transaction costs (TC), two dimensions of firm efficiency derived from TCE. This diverges from conventional approaches that endeavor to assess the efficiency of firms through other metrics like profits, revenue, wages, and R&D. More specifically, in this case SOEs and non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs) were compared along the TCE dimensions using multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA).
The research was conducted in the context of within-firm logistics processes of international multimodal transport (IMT) companies in Vietnam. The justification for the choice of context is twofold. First, whilst logistics integration (LI) is argued to bring about sustainable competitive advantage to firms, empirical studies into its strategic role within firms are limited. Second, there is an overt bias in the existing empirical studies towards Western, developed nations and manufacturing activities ([13] Luo et al. , 2001). Consequently, the choice of within-firm logistics processes of a service industry in an Asian developing country is an effort to fill these gaps and affords an...