The Asian crisis and the implications for human resource management in Vietnam

Abstract

Abstract Vietnam has experienced substantial economic growth since the mid-1980s when economic reform (doi moi) started. However, the Asian crisis had some negative impacts on the Vietnamese economy. Both the external environment and internal competition added more pressure on companies to speed up organizational reform. Transforming the old personnel management into new flexible human resource management system is one of the central reform agendas among companies in order to survive the market competition. This research analyses the nature of the changes in the area of human resource management under the influence of market-oriented reform that puts emphases on flexibility and competitiveness in the new millennium. Keywords: Asian crisiscompetitivenesseconomic reformflexibilityhuman resource managementVietnam Acknowledgements The author thanks officials, managers and academic colleagues in Vietnam for their assistance and contribution, in particular Ngan Collins for her support of this investigation. Thanks to Professor Michael Webber (the University of Melbourne) for his valuable comments and suggestions on an earlier draft.