Internal Determinants and Effects of Firm-Level Environmental Performance: Empirical Evidences from Vietnam

Pham Quynh Anh

doi:10.5539/ass.v11n4p190

Abstract

The paper explores the internal determinants of a manufacturing firm’s environmental performance indexed by acquiring government or ISO 14001 certificate and its impacts on the firm’s competitiveness in Vietnam, using a panel logistic and a modified Cobb-Douglas model respectively. It is found that firm size; environmental management system (EMS), foreign ownership, environmental staff, high technology level and middle age are factors increasing a firm’s possibility conforming to the ISO 14001 standards while domestics’ private ownership and low-or medium technology levels are constraints. There is no conclusive relationship between firm’s environmental performance, state ownership and old, young age. Firm’s environmental performance has no significant impact on its competitiveness measured by labor productivity.

Highlights

The implementation of the open-door policy since the late 1990s has led to dramatic economic changes in Vietnam, characterized by flows of foreign direct investment, an explosion of newly established private domestic firms and the acceleration of industrialization
It is found that firm size; environmental management system (EMS), foreign ownership, environmental staff, high technology level and middle age are factors increasing a firm’s possibility conforming to the ISO 14001 standards while domestics’ private ownership and low-or medium technology levels are constraints
This paper is, the first to identify the determinants of firm-level environmental performance and its impact on manufacturing firms’ competitiveness in Vietnam from the management and economic perspectives, especially using advanced econometric analysis method and panel data

Summary

Introduction

The implementation of the open-door policy since the late 1990s has led to dramatic economic changes in Vietnam, characterized by flows of foreign direct investment, an explosion of newly established private domestic firms and the acceleration of industrialization. Based on its definition and conditions for environmental data collection, environmental performance is measured directly by emission volume (Porter & Linde, 1995), ratio of emission over output level (Earnhart & Lizal, 2007, Arimura, Hibiki, & Katayama, 2008), emission intensity (Jiang & Lin, 2014) This was indirectly measured by degree of environmental regulation compliance (Dasgupta et al, 2000), an overall score based on firm’s valuation of its environmental management and environmental control and ecological material, product (Clausen, Keil, & Conrard, 2002), the firm’s product life management score and intention to apply EMS in line with ISO 14001(Lefebvre et al, 2003), government discharge of over-standard pollution per output level (Wang & Jin, 2007); level of energy usage (Cole, Elliott, & Strobl, 2008), the firm’s managers assessment of its positions based on emission reduction (Lopez-Gamero, Molina-Azorin, & Clave-Cortes, 2009)

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion