Rapid growth and inflation, full employment and low wages, increased consumer awareness and product competition, time demands and congestion…  These are all issues that change the way business is done in Vietnam.  Developing effective growth strategies requires from leaders of Vietnamese businesses an in-depth understanding of the economic, political, and cultural environments and how they are changing, and the ability and commitment to lead strategic and structural change projects in their organizations for better response and adaptation to these external changes.

The “Leadership in a Changing World: justaposition of international & Vietnamese experience” workshop, organized by the International School of Management and Economics (www.neufie.edu.vn) under the National Economics University (NEU) on 5th November 2011, with speakers from the University of Puget Sound (Washington, USA) and the Organizational Capacity Development Company (OCD) brings together interesting perspectives of experienced speakers to an audience of over 30 Vietnamese leaders, managers and alumni of ISME. 

The workshop started with a welcome speech by Dr. Hoang Van Hoa, Director of ISME and followed by Dr. James McCullough’s rich experience sharing session on the topic of “Strategic Responses to the Changing Business Environment in Vietnam”.

Dr. James McCullough is the Jewett Distinguished Professor in International Marketing at the University of Puget Sound in the United States (www.pugetsound.edu). With interesting and thought-provoking examples taken from his personal working and teaching experience covering over90 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe as well as his experience conducting research and teaching in Vietnam since 1992, Dr. McCullough walked the audience through the economic, political, and cultural shifts in the business environment nowadays and suggest how business leaders should adapt their business strategy to increase success as the environment changes. 

Looking at leadership in a changing world from the local (Vietnamese) perspective, Ms. Nguyen Thi Nam Phuong, Lead Consultant from the Vietnamese consulting firm Organizational Capacity Development Company (http://ocd.vn) discussed the “Roles of the Vietnamese business leaders in professionalizing their corporate management systems: lessons learned from leading Vietnamese companies”. Her presentation summarizes the key findings of many strategic restructuring projects that OCD consultants helped to facilitate and implement in various mid-sized to big-sized Vietnamese companies, both State-owned and private sector.

Dr. McCullough and Ms. Phuong’s insights and experience sharing sparked enthusiastic discussion and questions from the audience. Many participants have expressed interest to continue the discussion on the role of the business leaders in this changing world back to their workplace, to engage colleagues and their managers on how they can champion true leadership in their respective organizations.