Internal determinants of export performance of small and medium enterprises in Vietnam

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the internal determinants of the export performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Vietnam. Building upon the Resource-Based Theory, hypotheses on the internal determinants of export performance of SMEs in Vietnam are proposed. A sample of 569 SMEs with export activities in Vietnam during the year 2018 is collected to carry out this research. To ensure the reliability of data, this study excludes joint venture companies due to ambiguous participation between the government and the foreign element. A linear regression approach is applied along with the Robust standard errors method to test the proposed hypotheses of the research model. In addition, this study also examines several control variables in the model, including cultural distance, geographic distance, economic distance, and institutional distance. Estimation results reveal that firm size, firm industry, and research and development (R&D) have a positive and statistically significant impact on the export performance of SMEs in Vietnam, while the manager’s gender has a negative and statistically significant influence on the export performance of these firms. Based on the empirical findings, several governance implications are provided for managers to improve the export performance of their SMEs in Vietnam.