Innovation and intangible asset (IA) management have not received adequate attention amongst labour- and capital-intensive sectors. This study investigates the effect of IAs on firms’ performance and the internal and external determinants of firms’ IA development amongst small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Vietnamese sectors of agriculture, forestry and fishery (AFF). The study adopts a stochastic frontier analysis to estimate firms’ performance and propensity score matching to examine the difference between firms with and without IAs. Ten hypotheses of innovation determinants including firms’ internal and external factors are also investigated. The results reveal three notable findings. (1) For Vietnamese AFF sectors, IAs diminish firms’ performance. (2) Internal factors such as age, size and financial robustness have positive effects on the formation of IAs, while investments in land, labour and research and development impose mixed effects. (3) External factors, such as regional and province-specific characteristics, have significant impacts on IAs. These results suggest a review of current policies on innovation and IA management amongst SMEs.

创新和无形资产 (IA) 管理在劳动密集型和资本密集型行业中没有得到足够的重视。本研究调查了 IA 对企业绩效的影响以及越南农业、林业和渔业 (AFF) 部门中小型和中型企业 (SME) 企业 IA 发展的内部和外部决定因素。该研究采用随机前沿分析来估计公司的绩效和倾向得分匹配，以检验有和没有 IA 的公司之间的差异。还研究了包括公司内部和外部因素在内的创新决定因素的十个假设。结果揭示了三个值得注意的发现。(1) 对于越南 AFF 部门，IA 降低了公司的业绩。(2) 年龄等内在因素，规模和财务稳健性对 IA 的形成有积极影响，而对土地、劳动力和研发的投资则产生混合影响。(3) 外部因素，例如区域和省的特点，对IA有显着影响。这些结果表明了对当前中小企业创新和 IA 管理政策的审查。