Firms and export performance: does size matter?

摘要

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between export performance and firm size. Design/methodology/approach - Analysing a large sample of firms in the Vietnamese manufacturing sector, the authors employ a quantile regression approach to asses whether or not the relationship between exporting and firm size is dependent upon the extent of exporting that firms already undertake. Findings - The authors find that increased firm size leads to higher export volumes. However, in sharp contrast to literature that largely focuses on considering a linear relationship between these two variables, the authors further find that the positive relationship becomes weaker as the extent of exporting activity increases. Originality/value - In contrast to the earlier literature, a key novelty of the approach is that the authors obtain new insights in terms of establishing a nonlinear relationship between firm size and export performance in the case of Vietnamese manufacturing.