Firm performance: the moderation impact of debt and dividend policies on overinvestment

Purpose – Debt, dividend and investment policy constitutes a company's important financial decisions to determine firm performance. The research emphasizes on the problem of overinvestment, a phenomenon that worsens firm operation. Furthermore, it clarifies the moderation role of debt and divid...

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Main Authors: Nghia Nguyen Trong, Cong Thanh Nguyen
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Emerald Publishing 2021-03-01
Series:Journal of Asian Business and Economic Studies
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JABES-12-2019-0128/full/pdf?title=firm-performance-the-moderation-impact-of-debt-and-dividend-policies-on-overinvestment
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author Nghia Nguyen Trong
Cong Thanh Nguyen
author_facet Nghia Nguyen Trong
Cong Thanh Nguyen
author_sort Nghia Nguyen Trong
collection DOAJ
description Purpose – Debt, dividend and investment policy constitutes a company's important financial decisions to determine firm performance. The research emphasizes on the problem of overinvestment, a phenomenon that worsens firm operation. Furthermore, it clarifies the moderation role of debt and dividend policy in mitigating the negative effect of overinvestment on firm performance in the case of Vietnamese listed companies. Design/methodology/approach – The research uses all financial statement of non-financial Vietnamese listed companies on Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi Stock Exchange in the period of 2008–2018. The data are collected from Thomson Reuters Eikon. The final data set is comprised of 669 listed companies. The study measures overinvestment though investment demand function and HP filter. Moreover, the research employs the dynamic model, so it has to apply the SGMM method to deal with the problem of endogeneity caused by the lagged dependent variable. Findings – The research finds that overinvestment is negatively associated with firm performance. Debt or dividend policy separately can moderate the negative effect of overinvestment on firm performance. However, when these two policies are combined, they lessen the positive interaction impact of each policy due to the substitution between debt and dividend policy. Research limitations/implications – The research may have two limitations. Firstly, the research measures overinvestment indirectly through investment demand function and HP filter. These two measures only help identify the sign that companies may have the problem of overinvestment because we cannot determine whether they overinvest or not in reality. Secondly, when using interaction variables, the problem of multicollinearity may be higher, and this may adjust the signs and significance level of variables in the models. Practical implications – Practically, the research proposes three policy recommendations. Firstly, a company can exploit debt or dividend policy to limit excessive free cash flow in order to constrain the problem of overinvestment. Secondly, a company should enhance its corporate governance to resolve agency problems. Thirdly, the government should make the financial sector more transparent and effective to improve monitoring functions of various parties in the capital market. Social implications – Overinvestment sometimes can cause social issues. Overinvestment means that companies make ineffective investment. If they continue this situation over a long time, companies may have financial distress or even go bankruptcy. As a result, it will slow down economic growth and increase unemployment in the economy. Originality/value – The research is supposed to make two great contributions to the existing empirical studies in two aspects. Firstly, it is the first attempt to take into consideration the interaction between overinvestment and financial policies. Secondly, it helps enhance the fundamental stance of the agency theory, which supports the interdependence of debt, dividend and investment policy.
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spelling doaj.art-35fc4d28565942afa5a123f7cf64c00f2022-12-22T03:16:19ZengEmerald PublishingJournal of Asian Business and Economic Studies2515-964X2021-03-01281476310.1108/JABES-12-2019-0128645163Firm performance: the moderation impact of debt and dividend policies on overinvestmentNghia Nguyen Trong0Cong Thanh Nguyen1School of Banking and Finance, University of Economics and Law, Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City (VNU-HCM), Ho Chi Minh City, VietnamDepartment of Economics and Finance, RMIT International University – Saigon South Campus, Ho Chi Minh City, VietnamPurpose – Debt, dividend and investment policy constitutes a company's important financial decisions to determine firm performance. The research emphasizes on the problem of overinvestment, a phenomenon that worsens firm operation. Furthermore, it clarifies the moderation role of debt and dividend policy in mitigating the negative effect of overinvestment on firm performance in the case of Vietnamese listed companies. Design/methodology/approach – The research uses all financial statement of non-financial Vietnamese listed companies on Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi Stock Exchange in the period of 2008–2018. The data are collected from Thomson Reuters Eikon. The final data set is comprised of 669 listed companies. The study measures overinvestment though investment demand function and HP filter. Moreover, the research employs the dynamic model, so it has to apply the SGMM method to deal with the problem of endogeneity caused by the lagged dependent variable. Findings – The research finds that overinvestment is negatively associated with firm performance. Debt or dividend policy separately can moderate the negative effect of overinvestment on firm performance. However, when these two policies are combined, they lessen the positive interaction impact of each policy due to the substitution between debt and dividend policy. Research limitations/implications – The research may have two limitations. Firstly, the research measures overinvestment indirectly through investment demand function and HP filter. These two measures only help identify the sign that companies may have the problem of overinvestment because we cannot determine whether they overinvest or not in reality. Secondly, when using interaction variables, the problem of multicollinearity may be higher, and this may adjust the signs and significance level of variables in the models. Practical implications – Practically, the research proposes three policy recommendations. Firstly, a company can exploit debt or dividend policy to limit excessive free cash flow in order to constrain the problem of overinvestment. Secondly, a company should enhance its corporate governance to resolve agency problems. Thirdly, the government should make the financial sector more transparent and effective to improve monitoring functions of various parties in the capital market. Social implications – Overinvestment sometimes can cause social issues. Overinvestment means that companies make ineffective investment. If they continue this situation over a long time, companies may have financial distress or even go bankruptcy. As a result, it will slow down economic growth and increase unemployment in the economy. Originality/value – The research is supposed to make two great contributions to the existing empirical studies in two aspects. Firstly, it is the first attempt to take into consideration the interaction between overinvestment and financial policies. Secondly, it helps enhance the fundamental stance of the agency theory, which supports the interdependence of debt, dividend and investment policy.https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JABES-12-2019-0128/full/pdf?title=firm-performance-the-moderation-impact-of-debt-and-dividend-policies-on-overinvestmentoverinvestmentdebt policydividend policyfirm performancevietnamese listed companiesm31g35
spellingShingle Nghia Nguyen Trong
Cong Thanh Nguyen
Firm performance: the moderation impact of debt and dividend policies on overinvestment
Journal of Asian Business and Economic Studies
overinvestment
debt policy
dividend policy
firm performance
vietnamese listed companies
m31
g35
title Firm performance: the moderation impact of debt and dividend policies on overinvestment
title_full Firm performance: the moderation impact of debt and dividend policies on overinvestment
title_fullStr Firm performance: the moderation impact of debt and dividend policies on overinvestment
title_full_unstemmed Firm performance: the moderation impact of debt and dividend policies on overinvestment
title_short Firm performance: the moderation impact of debt and dividend policies on overinvestment
title_sort firm performance the moderation impact of debt and dividend policies on overinvestment
topic overinvestment
debt policy
dividend policy
firm performance
vietnamese listed companies
m31
g35
url https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JABES-12-2019-0128/full/pdf?title=firm-performance-the-moderation-impact-of-debt-and-dividend-policies-on-overinvestment
work_keys_str_mv AT nghianguyentrong firmperformancethemoderationimpactofdebtanddividendpoliciesonoverinvestment
AT congthanhnguyen firmperformancethemoderationimpactofdebtanddividendpoliciesonoverinvestment