Research Article Developing Entrepreneurial Competencies in Vietnam: Evidence from the Bac Ninh Province Maria Giovanna Devetag 1 , Giovanni Zazzerini 1,2,5 , Nguyen Quang Tuan 3 and Doan Quang Hung 1,4 Abstract The article presents the results of a survey conducted among colleges and enterprises located in Bac Ninh, Vietnam, with the aim of identifying skills and competencies required by local enterprises versus those that colleges develop and transfer to their students.The final aim is to spot gaps and discrepancies which may help explain the students’ current low level of employability and, consequently, define lines of intervention that may help reduce the gaps. The key finding emerging from the research is the relatively low importance given by colleges to entrepreneurial competencies compared with what enterprises want. Keywords Entrepreneurship, employability, entrepreneurial competencies,Vietnam Entrepreneurship is a competence for life. (McCallum et al., 2018) Introduction The problem of youth unemployment is a serious one in several developed and emerging countries. In the effort to contrast it, local institutions have started to look for lines of interventions that may help providing students with the skills and competencies that best meet the current needs of the local labour markets in the effort to increase youngsters’ employability and knowledge exchange between industry and education. 1 Department of Business and Management, LUISS University, Italy. 2 Department of Economics, University of Perugia, Italy. 3 Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, Bac Ninh,Vietnam. 4 Foreign Trade University, Hanoi,Vietnam. 5 INSME-The International Network for SMEs, Italy. Corresponding author: Giovanni Zazzerini, INSME-The International Network for SMEs,Via Giosué Carducci 400187, Rome, Italy. E-mail: zazzerini@insme.org Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies 1–19 © The Author(s) 2020 Reprints and permissions: in.sagepub.com/journals-permissions-india DOI: 10.1177/2393957520924987 journals.sagepub.com/home/eie