The Effect of Corporate Governance Factors on the Corporate Capital Structure of Vietnamese Listed Companies

Abstract

Capital structure, leverage ratio or balance between debt and ownership are always the important task of any company. It impacts to all business function and causality impact on managerial financial decision. In Vietnam, 97% of Vietnamese businesses are small and medium-sized enterprises, with limited capital capacity and difficulty in securing assets. They have to carry on and pressure on the double burden of cash flow and the risk of jumping into debt. This research explores the relationship between corporate governance factors, including Board duality, board gender, board size, board independence, and the capital structure of Vietnam listed companies. The research collects data of 199 listed companies in Vietnam from 2016 to 2021 from fiscal year financial statement from HNX and HOSE index and use 1188 observations in total. The results show that independent, size’s board of directors have significant relation with capital structure - leverage ratio. While company has dual director - Chief of Executive concurrently is the Chairman of the Board of Directors, and gender are negative effect to leverage, but only gender is provided significant result. It is consistent with the previous studies that the good board committee structure and quality tend to have lower debt ratio and increasing firm performance.