THE EFFECT OF KNOWLEDGE ABOUT ECONOMIC COMMUNITY ON PERFORMANCE OF VIETNAMESE SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES

The paper investigates the effect of small and medium enterprises’ (SMEs) level of the Association of the South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Economic Community (AEC) knowledge on attitudes, readiness, and performance. Questionnaire for collecting data from 150 SMEs in Hanoi, Vietnam. AEC’s implementation only has a small impact on improving SME performance. The results show that 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. Both the roles of attitude and readiness are needed to mediate the effect of knowledge on SMEs’ performance.