Working Conditions, Export Decisions, and Firm Constraints-Evidence from Vietnamese Small and Medium Enterprises

Better working conditions promote employee creativity and loyalty. Meanwhile, a stable skilled workforce contributes to firm’s sustainable growth. Therefore, providing favorable is one of the critical goals many countries worldwide. However, some critics are concerned participating in international trade causes worsening employment developing countries. Driven by these concerns, relationship between exports labor worth illuminating. This study adopts data from Vietnam’s small medium-sized manufacturing enterprises (SMEs). The dataset was collected Ministry Labour, Invalids Social Affairs (MOLISA) University Copenhagen, UNU-WIDER 2011 2015. Unlike previous studies, this clusters firms export status, including four groups: non-exporting, consecutive exporting, start-exporting, exit-exporting. Observing dynamic sheds light on effects decisions more thoroughly than static export. Another contribution, focuses an essential aspect conditions: fringe benefits. Subsequently, analysis upgraded controlling for firm constraints as interaction variables. A major constraint financial adopted proxy constraints. work promotes assessments be accurate, thereby valuable information policymakers. Finally, robustness test applied each type benefit. Instrumental variables used solve problem endogeneity. results found that exporting provide better conditions. Additionally, constrained have worse