Firms and export performance: does size matter?

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.