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THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

Independence - Freedom - Happiness

Ho Chi Minh City, 16th December 2020

THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL CONTRIBUTION

Thesis: Labor productivity of Vietnam enterprises

Major: Development economics Code: 9310105
Ph.D. student: Dao Vu Phuong Linh Intake: 2015
Institution: University of Economic Ho Chi Minh City
Supervisor: 1. Dr. Pham Khanh Nam
2. Dr. Le Van Chon
Summary of theoretical and practical contribution:
1. Contribution of study on theoretical aspects
Firstly, the thesis has synthesized and systematized theories related to labor
productivity and factors affecting labor productivity at the enterprise level, focusing on the
main factors as FDI, exports and Human capital resources that is represented here is
employee benefits. Accordingly, for each relationship, the thesis has presented in detail the
theoretical and empirical studies in the world and in Vietnam. The impact groups have also
been classified by the author into different mechanisms of action to help readers as well as
the following studies have obtained valuable references.
Secondly, the thesis uses a new approach when introducing the model with interaction
variables of FDI, export and non-wage welfare policy with the characteristics of
enterprises. The use of these interactive variables helps the model control as well as
further analyze the relationship between the factors. The research results of the thesis
shows different effects of FDI and exports on enterprises with different characteristics
(specifically with different capital intensity characteristics) and different effects of
employee benefits for different labor sizes business.
Thirdly, the thesis contributes significantly to the analytical framework of welfare
policies affecting labor productivity. In addition, studies in Vietnam today when studying
this relationship are often biased due to endogenous processing. The fact that the thesis
finds instrumental variables and solves endogenous problems for the case study is also a
new academic contribution of the thesis to this research topic.
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2. Contribution of study on practical aspects

First, in Vietnam, there are many studies that have studied labor productivity as well as
the effects of FDI and exports on labor productivity, but there are no studies that consider
these two modes of competition to enter globalization regime of businesses. Therefore, this
is the difference of the study compared to other studies when separating the contributions
of these two channels for two different industry groups representing capital and labor
intensive industries. It helps businesses clearly orient whether they should enter
globalization regime through FDI or export, which will bring more benefits based on their
capital intensive characteristics.
Secondly, the employee benefits title have not been studied much in Vietnam. The
compensation for the employee in Vietnam are mainly based on salary research, the non -
wage welfare policies are not given due attention, as evidenced by very little
documentation on this title. The results of the study partly contribute to empirical evidence
for the relationship between the implementation of employee benefits and labor
productivity in Vietnamese firms. This helps managers, SME employers to have more
evidence of the impact of non-wage welfare policies on labor productivity which to decide
whether to implement welfare policies profit at business.
In addition, the results of the study also provide more evidence for policymakers to
have the documentation which to partly answer the controversial issue in Vietnam today:
whether to consider replace the increase of the minimum wage with the implementation of
non-wage welfare policies to improve labor productivity of businesses.

Ph.D. student

Dao Vu Phuong Linh