Human resource management practices and firm outcomes: evidence from Vietnam

Abstract

Using a panel sample of manufacturing firms from small- and medium-sized enterprise surveys between 2009 and 2013, we estimate the causal effects on firm outcomes of human resource management practices at the firm level in Vietnam. Employing a fixed-effects framework for the estimation, we find that on average a firm that provides the training for new workers gains roughly 13.7%, 10% and 14.9% higher in output value per worker, value added per worker and gross profit per worker respectively than the counterpart. Moreover, an additional ten-day training duration for new employees on average leads to 4.1% increase in output value per worker, 3.0% rise in value added per worker and 3.0% growth in gross profit per worker. We also uncover that a marginal 10% of HRM spending results in about 2% and 1.6% rises in output value per worker and value added per worker, respectively. Nevertheless, we find no statistically significant impacts of incentive measure on firm outcomes. The estimated results are strongly robust to various specifications