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1Institute of Economics and World Economy, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences (VASS), Hanoi, Vietnam
2VNU International School, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam
3Vietnam Institute for Real Estate Market Research and Evaluation (VARS-IRE), Vietnam Association of Realtors (VARS), Hanoi, Vietnam
Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-Commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed.
Why do four ASEAN middle-income economies—Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines—pursuing comparably ambitious digital–green industrial strategies between 2018 and 2023 generate markedly divergent upgrading trajectories? This article argues that the explanatory variable lies not in policy content but in policy architecture: the institutional configuration through which industrial policy is translated from strategic vision into firm-level action. Two dimensions of architecture prove decisive: coordination quality, measuring the degree to which inter-ministerial mechanisms generate accountability for diffusion outcomes; and integration degree, measuring the extent to which digital and green transformation mandates are governed jointly rather than in parallel. Drawing on a structured focused comparison across four cases selected on a most-similar systems logic, the article derives a 2×2 typology—Integrated Coordinator (Malaysia), Selective Institutionaliser (Thailand), Ambitious Fragmentor (Indonesia) and Document-policy State (the Philippines)—whose predicted upgrading trajectories are confirmed by firm-level technology absorption data (World Bank Enterprise Surveys), economic complexity indices, manufacturing value-added per worker and green export intensity. The comparative analysis identifies two asymmetric failure modes: coordination failure produces stagnation, in which technology does not reach small and medium enterprises; integration failure produces incoherence, in which digital and green transitions pull firms in contradictory directions. The article situates Vietnam at Type III and derives a sequenced institutional reform pathway from comparative logic rather than generic prescriptions. The theoretical contribution is the introduction of policy architecture as a meso-level construct bridging the macro literature on mission-oriented industrial policy and the firm-level literature on absorptive capacity.
Industrial policy architecture, digital–green twin transition, technology diffusion, developmental state, ASEAN, comparative political economy, Vietnam
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