Purpose - Micro-finance institutions (MFIs) are critical to Vietnam’s quest for poverty alleviation among the poor in the rural and agrarian communities. The current study attempts to investigate the impact of microfinance outreach programs undertaken by formal and semi-formal MFIs in Vietnam targeting the poor rural and agrarian communities. Research design, data, methodology - An enquiry was made as to whether the poor and rural communities accessed the micro credit offered by Government supported MFIs and NGOs through their microfinance outreach programs. Furthermore, the current study attempted to explore if the current mode of operations adopted by MFIs in Vietnam is sustainable. Results -The findings indicate that significant progress has been made in Vietnam to alleviate poverty among the poor rural communities through micro finance outreach programs. Conclusions - There are also pointers of MFIs sustainability in Vietnam. However, it still remains to be seen if the current sustainability pointers are long lasting without government subsidies or some international organizations financial support to microfinance outreach programs.

Purpose - Distribution channels cannot function without cooperation. While evidence suggests channel power plays a fundamental role in fostering successful manufacturer-dealer channel cooperation in Western countries distribution systems, little is known empirically as to how dealers’possession of non-mediated powers influence SME manufacturers’ cooperation in Asian developing countries. Research design, data, methodology - Drawing upon the extant distribution channels literatures; this study conceptualizes a model and examines the effects of dealer’s non-mediated powers on manufacturing SME firms, as well as the mediating influence of trust, relationship satisfaction and commitment. A survey of 400 manufacturing SMEs in Taiwan empirically supports the proposed hypothesis. Results - The model is acceptable in terms of overall goodness of fit. Acceptable model fit are indicated by χ2/(df): 2.35, GFI≧.90; RMSEA values≦ .08; IFI, TLI and CFI values≧.90. Our results indicate that, GFI (0.910), IFI (0.937), TLI (0.903), CFI (0.936), and RMSEA (0.079) and therefore, achieved the suggested thresholds. Conclusions - The results of this study have some managerial implications for managers in the dealer’s firms. The overall implication from the findings is that managers can utilize expert, referent and traditional legitimate powers to attain channel cooperation with manufacturing SMEs in addition to garnering their trust, relationship satisfaction and commitment.