2019 年 12 月
JOURNAL OF SOUTHWEST JIAOTONG UNIVERSITY
Dec. 2019
ISSN: 0258-2724
DOI：10.35741/issn.0258-2724.54.6.34
Research Article Economics
H
OW TO
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NHANCE
F
IRM
P
ERFORMANCE
:
T
HE
C
ASE OF
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MALL
AND
M
EDIUM
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NTE
RPRISES IN
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IETNAM
如何提高企业绩效：以越南的中小型企业为例
Nguyen Thanh Vu a, *, Bui Xuan Bien b, Tran Minh Thai b, Than Van Hai c, Nguyen Thanh Hung d
a Nguyen Tat Thanh University
300A Nguyen Tat Thanh Street, Ward 13, District 4, Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam, thanhvukcn1979 @gmail.com
b Hanoi Financial and Banking University
136 Pham Van Dong, Xuan Dinh Ward, Bac Tu Liem District, Hanoi City, Vietnam
c T.L.T Sports Marketing Corp
111/4 Tran Binh Trong St., Ward 2, Dist 5, HCMC, Vietnam
d
Binh Duong University
No. 504, Bình Dương Boulevard - P. Hiệp Thành - Thu Dau Mot City - Binh Duong, Vietnam
Abstract
Firm performance is a function of the organization’s ability to acquire and deploy resources in manner that allows them to gain a sustainable competitive advantage. This study identifies factors affecting firm performance of small and medium enterprises in Vietnam. It will explore these factors for successful start-ups businesses in Vietnam. The study employed the sampling technique, conducting direct interviews with respondents. Due to the limited resources, the sample size comprised 358 small and medium businesses only. The theoretical framework was drawn out and the questionnaire was designed based on the factors selected. The entire hypotheses were successfully tested with SPSS and some hypotheses were accepted. The results revealed that firm performance is measured by two key factors in the country: intellectual capital and relational capital. Furthermore, intellectual capital is affected by three variables: human capital, organizational capital and relational capital.
Keywords:Intellectual Capital, Firm Performance, Small and Medium Enterprise
摘要 公司绩效取决于组织获取和部署资源的能力，使他们获得可持续的竞争优势。 本研究确定 了影响越南中小企业绩效的因素。 它将探索这些因素以在越南成功开展创业。 该研究采用了抽 样技术，对受访者进行了直接采访。 由于资源有限，样本数量仅包括 358 家中小企业。 制定了 理论框架，并根据选择的因素设计了问卷。 整个假设已成功用 SPSS 进行了检验，并且接受了一 些假设。 结果表明，企业绩效是由国家的两个关键因素来衡量的：智力资本和关系资本。 此 外，知识资本受三个变量的影响：人力资本，组织资本和关系资本。 关键词: 智力资本，企业绩效，中小企业
I.
I
NTRODUCTIONEntrepreneurship plays an important role in a dynamic modern economy. Failure as an entrepreneur can be costly to society in terms of missed opportunities and lost resources and can be devastating to the individual entrepreneur in terms of the financial and psychological impact. Firm performance is a function of the organization’s ability to acquire, develop, and use physical, financial, human, and intellectual capital [12], [15], [16], [20]. Researchers have long studied the relationship between financial capital and firm performance, but very little research has been investigated the relationship between intellectual capital, relational capital, and firm performance [22]. Additionally, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play a key role in the development of an economy, especially in developing countries. These enterprises create jobs, contribute to the global GDP, and most importantly, they are fundamental in driving innovation [18], [19], [21]. A startup, which is a newly emerging business venture that aims to meet a marketplace need or solve a problem by developing a viable business model around products, services, and processes, is an entrepreneurial venture [1], [13], [14]. Some researchers have addressed successful entrepreneurs but others have looked at the failure of small business managers. These studies address whether or not there are clear characteristics, which distinguish small business barriers to find out which factors are essential for policy makers. Several studies highlight the main issues that cause some small and medium business to be successful, but cause others to fail. This situation has addressed some concerns, as a productive economy is reliant on the startup of substantial business numbers and the growth of such firms (delete). The importance of this question is more important because the government determined that social and economic development planning should move toward more small businesses. The establishment of small businesses also offers more occupations for the unemployed people in Vietnam. Therefore, the results of this research will help policy makers with the same economic situation to develop reasonable planning to take advantage of the development of small and medium businesses.
II.
L
ITERATURER
EVIEW A. Firm PerformanceBonoma and Clark [2] discovered what is used more commonly by the enterprise to measure the financial side, including the rate of profit, sales growth rate, market share, and cash flow. Douglas and Morgan [3] pointed out when a company is judging and whether it’s organizational marketing capabilities can shape its organization's competitive advantages. It can carry out measurement from three performance indicators such as:
(a) Customer satisfaction - this indicator includes various actions that can be taken to improve customer satisfaction. For example, customer satisfaction, the delivery capability of customer values, the ability to satisfy customers, retaining valuable customers, etc.
(b) Market performance - this indicator is mainly used to measure the company's ability to achieve various goals related to markets. For example, the growth of the market share, the growth of sales revenue, the growing number of new customers, and the growth of sales volume to existing customers, etc.
(c) Expected or existing earning power - this indicator is mainly used to measure the warning situation within the past year and forecast the earning situation in the next year. For example, earning power, rate of return, return on sales, and the ability to achieve the financial goals of a business unit, etc.
A startup is a new business venture designed to effectively develop and validate a scalable business model [1]. This is particularly the case of SME's focused on providing products and services through firm performance. Firm performance by creating new businesses is a driving force for economic development [23]. International studies by Radas and Bozic [4] and Zain and Kassim [5] show that there is a close relationship between business and local economic growth.
Martin Clarke et al. [6] said that firm value is based on more than physical capital. Intangible assets such as intellectual capital have always existed; however, it is only recently that the accounting profession has seriously attempted to define, disclose, and measure them. Therefore, there is a relative relationship between intellectual capital and firm performance.
According to Kishore Datta et al. [7], this study has evaluated the impact of relational capital components on firm performance of firms in the Dharmada region, in India. The analysis identifies and provides suggestions regarding upgrading and maintaining relational capital components in which the firms may have some
advantage. This can make substantial contribution to the performance of firms.
B. Intellectual Capital (IC), Human Capital, Organisational Capital and Relational Capital
M. A. Youndt et al. [8] stated that intellectual capital is defined as the sum of all knowledge an organization is able to leverage in the process of conducting business to gain a competitive advantage. Such knowledge accumulates over time and resides in an organization’s people, structures, systems, processes, and databases. Ramona Todericiu et al. [9] illustrates that there are three distinct types of capital including human, structural and relational capital, which affect intellectual capital.
Human capital (HC) is the knowledge, skills,
and abilities residing in and utilized by individual employees and creates value for firms in return for the investments (hiring, training, motivating) made in them [10]. This type of capital, together with the relational capital, cannot be owned, but has to be shared with employees, suppliers, partners and customers, and it grows depending on the environment that we create. A so-called nurturing environment, one that is based on a strong organizational culture, will lead to a faster and longer-serving growth.
Organizational capital (OC) is the collective
know how, beyond the capabilities of individual employees such as information systems, policies and procedures, and intellectual property. The knowledge economy has opened up opportunities for every organization to replace costly physical assets with inexpensive ones.
Relational capital (RC) is all business
relationships a company entertains with external parties, such as suppliers, partners, clients, vendors, etc. [17].
Figure 1. Model and some hypotheses of authors’ study
III.
M
ETHODOLOGY OF THER
ESEARCH A. Research ProcessThis study combined qualitative and quantitative research methods. The qualitative research method has been conducted by focus group discussions with 10 CEOs of SMEs in Vietnam in 03/2019 in a meeting room of the Statistics Offices to modify observational variables that have been used to measure research concepts. The result identified that firm performance concept is measured by two variables – relational capital and intellectual capital. In addition, intellectual capital is affected by human capital, organizational capital and relational capital.
All items were measured by using a 5-point Likert scale anchored by 1 = strongly disagree, and 5 = strongly agree. Quantitative research has been conducted through direct interviews (face-to-face interviews) based on a random sampling of 358 small and medium-sized enterprises in Vietnam, specifically in Ho Chi Minh, Da Nang province, and Binh Duong province. For this study, these regions were chosen because they exhibited the development of SME's. Samples were collected from 05/2019 to 07/2019 using a detailed questionnaire to test model and research hypotheses.
B. Data Processing Techniques
Cronbach’s Alpha reliability analysis, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were used to assess the scales. The structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test model and research hypotheses.
IV.
R
ESULTS ANDD
ISCUSSION A. Description of Research SampleAmong respondents, 42 people were declined because of many inappropriate responses. Data is calculated by SPSS software 20.0 with 358 valid respondents and 89.5% of all questionnaire submissions.
Table 1.
Types of surveyed entrepreneurs
Frequency Percent Valid percent Cumulative percent Limited Liability Company 243 67.9% 67.9% 67.9% Private company 51 14.2% 14.2% 82.1% Other 64 17.9% 17.9% 100 Total 358 100 100 Table 2. Fields of business
Frequency Percent Valid percent
Cumulative percent
Valid Commerce 122 34.1% 34.1% 34.1% Service 120 33.5% 33.5% 67.6% Tourism 28 7.8% 7.8% 75.4% Other 88 24.6% 24.6% 100 Total 358 100% 100 Table 3.
Results of the reliability analysis of research concepts
Cronbach's alpha N of items
.910 30
Table 4.
Results of scale statistics
Mean Variance Std. deviation N of items
83.9135 206.008 14.35296 30
Table 5.
The results analysis of firm performance’s reliability
Scale mean if item deleted Scale variance if item deleted Corrected item - Total correlation Cronbach's alpha if item deleted FP1 11.3513 8.508 .717 .701 FP2 11.3792 8.742 .682 .715 FP3 11.3829 8.773 .699 .709 FP4 11.4089 8.674 .707 .706 FP5 11.1320 13.143 .069 .872
The results are presented in Tables 3 and 5, which demonstrate that the 05 observed variables and 30 independent variables used to measure firm performance concepts are satisfied with the Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient (Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient > 0.6 and correlation coefficient – total > 0.3) [11].
1) Results of EFA
The results of EFA presented in Tables 6 and 7 illustrate the recommended scales which have satisfied the standard. EFA factors affecting firm performance are respectively extracted into 02 factor groups, corresponding to observe variables from 04 concepts.
Figure 2. The results of the SEM model
The results of the testing model are presented in Figure 3, showing that the models Chi2 = 584.232, Df = 204, and Cmin/df = 2.864 with p-value = 0.000 (< 0.05) were appropriate due to the size of the sample (only 350 respondents surveyed). In addition, other appropriate measures, such as TLI = 0.917, CFI = 0.933 are consistent. Thus, it is still possible to conclude
that this model is consistent with data collected from the market.
B. The Results of the Test Hypotheses
The results of the test hypotheses are presented in Table 7 and demonstrate that all hypotheses are acceptable.
Estimate S.E. C.R. P Result IC <--- HC .384 .044 8.709 *** Acceptable IC <--- OC .335 .042 7.935 *** Acceptable IC <--- RC .212 .091 6.748 *** Acceptable FP <--- IC .723 .076 10.889 *** Acceptable FP <--- RC .272 .104 6.487 *** Acceptable
V.
C
ONCLUSIONS OF THER
ESEARCHThe results testing indicates the suitability of the research model with data research, as well as the acceptance of the hypothesis in this research model which has shown the practical meaning for firm performance as follows:
FP = 0.723 IC + 0.272 RC, whereas IC =
0.384 HC + 0.335 OC + 0.212 RC (1)
Firstly, the frm performance is affected by those variables such as intellectual capital and relational capital. The research results have identified the priority of the components in the research model. Specifically, intellectual capital is the crucial factor affecting firm performance, which is also suitable for the actual situation in Vietnam.
Secondly, intellectual capital is also affected by three dominant factors, including human capital, organizational capital, and relational capital. This study illustrates that the results support this relationship, and suggest that human capital efficiency is a particularly important element of intellectual capital. Therefore, SME's gain benefits from improving their employees’ skills and knowledge, enhancing their education and know-how, and improving creative and innovative abilities in their performance. However, physical and financial capital provide the strongest influence over firm performance, showing that intangible values are not the sole driver of firm success. On the other hand, organizational capital is less important, and relational capital also contributes to the success of any business. Forming good relationships with policy makers, input suppliers, internal and external customers, and relevant people can help entrepreneurs do business better.
Third, the research identified the gap in the relationships some capitals have on the firm performance of small and medium enterprises in Vietnam. However, the limitation of the study is that the study only focused on entrepreneurs in the case of SMEs in Vietnam, which was not highly representative of the whole population.
