i MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY …. Vo Thi Thuc OWNERSHIP STRUCTURE, ACCOUNTING CONSERVATISM AND FIRM PERFORMANCE: EVIDENCE FROM VIETNAM A DOCTORAL THESIS Ho Chi Minh City, 2023 i MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY …. Vo Thi Thuc OWNERSHIP STRUCTURE, ACCOUNTING CONSERVATISM AND FIRM PERFORMANCE: EVIDENCE FROM VIETNAM Major: Accounting Code: 9340301 A DOCTORAL THESIS Supervisors: 1. Vo, Xuan Vinh 2.
Jonathan A, Batten Ho Chi Minh City, 2023 ii STATEMENT OF AUTHENTICATION I hereby declare that this thesis was carried out by myself under the guidance of supervisors. The data and figures presented in this thesis are honest. The results of the thesis have not previously been published in any other research. Vo Thi Thuc iii ACKNOWLEDGMENT Firstly, I would like to express deeply respect and gratitude to my two supervisors, Professor Vo Xuan Vinh and Professor Jonathan A.
Batten for their support and guidance. I sincerely thank Prof. Vo Xuan Vinh for creating conditions for me to learn research methods and skills from the first days. I would like to thank Prof.
Vo Xuan Vinh for always accompanying, encouraging and supporting me to overcome the most difficult period in the process of implementing the thesis. I sincerely thanks Prof. Johnathan Batten for his comments and support me the references so that I can complete the thesis. I would like to thank the University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, and the School of Accounting at University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City imparting knowledge during the study process and providing valuable comments during the thesis so that I can complete this thesis.
I would like to express sincere thanks to the leadership and the colleagues of the Faculty of Accounting, Ton Duc Thang University, for motivating and encouraging me to complete the PhD program. Finally, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my family, my mother, especially my husband and daughter, who have always listened, understood and shared everything so that I can focus on completing this thesis. Vo Thi Thuc iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABBREVIATIONS. ix LIST OF TABLES .x LIST OF FIGURES.
Motivation for research. Research subjects and research scope. Contribution of the thesis .10 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. Ownership structure types.
Summary methods on the measurement of accounting conservatism. Balance sheet measures. Book-to-market ratio. Income statement measures.
Accrual-based measures. Cash-flow-based measures. Basu’s PEC model. Earnings/stock return relation measures.
Basu’s asymmetric timeliness model. Khan and Watts’ (2009) model. Research on the relationship between ownership structure and accounting conservatism. Ownership concentration and accounting conservatism.
Ownership types and accounting conservatism. Managerial ownership and accounting conservatism. Institutional ownership and accounting conservatism. Foreign ownership and accounting conservatism.
State ownership and accounting conservatism. Research on the relationship between accounting conservatism and firm performance. 31 CONCLUSION OF CHAPTER 1. 33 CHAPTER 2: CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND HYPOTHESES.
The agency theory. Political cost theory. The signaling theory. The positive accounting theory.
Hypotheses and conceptual framework. The relationship between ownership concentration and accounting conservatism. The relationship between managerial ownership and accounting conservatism. The relationship between institutional ownership and accounting conservatism.
The relationship between foreign ownership and accounting conservatism. The relationship between state ownership and accounting conservatism42 2. The relationship between accounting conservatism and firm performance. Other factors that do not belong to the ownership structure which affect to accounting conservatism.
45 CONCLUSION OF CHAPTER 2 .47 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. Research method and research process. Model to analyze the feature of accounting conservatism in Vietnamese listed firms. Model to investigate the effect of ownership structure on accounting conservatism.
Model to investigate the effect of accounting conservatism on firm performance. Sample and data collection methods. Panel data analysis. Selecting the best regression equation.
Remedying defects with FGLS .68 CONCLUSION OF CHAPTER 3. 69 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION. Accounting conservatism of listed firms on the Vietnamese stock market. The feature of accounting conservatism in Vietnamese listed firms.
Measuring level of accounting conservatism. The level of accounting conservatism measured by asymmetric timeliness score according to Khan and Watts (2009). The level of accounting conservatism measured by accumulated accruals according to Ahmed and Duellman (2007). Group of factor variables related to ownership structure.
Group of factor variables related to firm performance. Group of factor variables related to firm characteristics. Correlation and regression statistics. Ownership structure and accounting conservatism measured follow to Khan and Watts (2009).
Ownership structure and accounting conservatism measured follow to Ahmed and Duellman (2007). Accounting conservatism and firm performance (Accounting conservatism measured follow to Khan and Watts (2009)). Accounting conservatism and firm performance (Accounting conservatism measured follow to Ahmed and Duellman (2007)). Summarize the results of the regression analysis and discuss the results.
Relationship between ownership structure and accounting conservatism. Relationship between accounting conservatism and firm performance. Control variables and conservatism. 102 CONCLUSION OF CHAPTER 4.
104 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION. Summary of findings. The relationship between ownership structure and accounting conservatism. The relationship between accounting conservatism and firm performance.
Proposing a number of recommendations related to the adopting of accounting conservatism principle of companies listed on the Vietnamese stock market. For policy makers. For listed firms. For users of financial statements.
The significance of research. Limitations of this thesis and Future research. 115 CONCLUSION OF CHAPTER 5. 117 LIST OF PAPERS.
120 ix ABBREVIATIONS ACC Accruals AT Asymmetric timeliness C_SCORE Asymmetric timeliness score CONS Accounting conservatism EPS Earnings per share FGLS Feasible Generalized Least Squares estimators FP Firm performance IFRS International Financial Reporting Standards HOSE Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange LIQ Liquidity of stocks NAICS North American Industry Classification System Obs Observations PEC Persistence of Earnings Changes ROA Return on Assets ROE Return on Equity SCC State Securities Commission TBQ Tobin's Q VIF Variance inflation factor x LIST OF TABLES Table 2. Research hypothesis and relationships with relevant underlying theories .1:Summary of the measures of ownership structure variables .Summary of the measures of firm performance. Summary of the measures of control variables .4: The sample of research .1: Multiple linear regressions for Basu (1997) model .2: The level of accounting conservatism measured through the firm-specific asymmetric timeliness score (C_SCORE) .3: The level of accounting conservatism measured through accumulated accruals (CONS_ACC) .6: Results of F – test; Breusch – Pagan test; Hausman test .7: Results of Breusch-Pagan test .8: Results of Wooldridge test .9 : Results of testing for multicollinearity .10: Results of regression of ownership structure and accounting conservatism measured by asymmetric timeliness score (C_SCORE) .11: Results of F – test; Breusch – Pagan test; Hausman test .12: Results of Wald test .13: Results of Wooldridge test .14: Results of testing for multi-collinearity .15: Results of regression of ownership structure and accounting conservatism measured by accrual .16: Results of F – test; Breusch – Pagan test; Hausman test .17: Results of Wald test .18: Results of Wooldridge test .19: Results of testing for multi-collinearity .20: Results of regression of accounting conservatism measured by asymmetric timeliness score (C_SCORE) and firm performance .21: Results of F – test; Breusch – Pagan test; Hausman test .22: Results of Wald test .23: Results of Wooldridge test .24: Results of testing for multi-collinearity .25: Results of the level of accounting conservatism measured by accruals (CONS_ACC) and firm performance .26: Results of regression coefficient estimation in the model 2,3 .27: Results of regression coefficient estimation in the model 4,5 .28: Summarize the results of hypothesis testing relationship between ownership structure and accounting conservatism.29: Summarize the results of hypothesis testing relationship between accounting conservatism and firm performance .98 xii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1: Conceptual model of the study 46 Figure 3.1: Research process 49 xiii ABSTRACT The goals of this thesis are to investigate the influence of ownership structure on accounting conservatism and the benefits of accounting conservatism on firm performance in Vietnam context. The literature review shows that ownership structure has an effect on accounting conservatism and accounting conservatism also has a positive effect on the firm performance in countries around the world, however, the findings have not been consistent.
In addition, there are a few studies that provide evidence on the relationship between ownership structure and accounting conservatism, especially ownership concentration, institutional ownership in the Vietnam context. Regarding the impact of accounting conservatism on the firm performance, there are limited studies on this issue until the time the thesis conducts the research in the Vietnam context. The research sample was selected from non-financial companies listed on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange in the period from 2012 to 2020. Data were collected from consolidated financial statements, annual reports, market prices and volume of trade are collected from the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange.
The panel data methodology is used to test the developed hypotheses. The thesis uses three popular methods to measure accounting conservatism: asymmetric timeliness (Basu, 1997), asymmetric timeliness score developed by Khan and Watts (2009) and accrual-based method developed by Ahmed and Duellman (2007). Accounting-based measures (Return on assets, return on equity), and market- based measure (Tobin's Q, Stock liquidity) are adopted in this study to measure the firm performance. For ownership structure variable, it is classified into ownership concentration and ownership type.
Ownership type consists of managerial ownership, institutional ownership, foreign ownership and state ownership. In respect of the effect of ownership structure on conservatism, the results display as expected. In particularly, higher institutional ownership, foreign ownership, state ownership leads to more conservatism; however, higher managerial ownership, ownership concentration leads to lower conservatism. Additionally, companies xiv adopted more accounting conservatism principle are shown that the firm performance have better.
The findings of this study contribute to the literature of ownership structure and accounting conservatism in the context of frontier market in Vietnam. This study also gives some useful implications for policymakers, practice of accounting, researchers, and users of accounting information in financial statements in Vietnam context. Keywords: Accounting conservatism; Ownership structure; A frontier market; Firm performance. Motivation for research Accounting conservatism is an age-old and common feature of financial accounting (Biddle et al.
There are different definitions of accounting conservatism. Basu (1997) defines accounting conservatism as an accounting principle that tends to require higher recognition of good news than bad news when preparing financial statements. Givoly and Hayn (2000) argue that applying the principle of accounting conservatism, the result is that expenses are recognized faster than revenue. Watts (2003) defines conservatism as the asymmetric timeliness in recognizing loss versus gain.
And, some documents suggest that the application of conservatism can help limit the opportunistic behavior of the company's management, thereby improving the reliability of the financial statements of the reporting entities. The optimal degree of accounting conservatism improves the quality of decisions making for financial market participants. Watts (2003) argues that regulations will greatly affect the adopting of accounting conservatism and the object who will have benefit from statements prepared under accounting conservatism are the users of financial report. Therefore, accounting conservatism is required to apply in preparing financial statements.
Ownership structure is formed from the nature of shareholders and respective shares. It represents ownership agreements and is the basis in determining a company's control structure, the foundation of the governance of company. For listed companies, Watts (1993) states that accounting conservatism is affected by a variety of governance factors. Therefore, the effect of ownership structure on the level of accounting conservatism will be essential for management, investors and others using the accounting information to have a full basis for consideration, assessment and correct decision-making.