Nghiên cứu ảnh hưởng các đặc điểm của giám đốc điều hành (CEO’s characteristic) đến hiệu quả hoạt động của một số doanh nghiệp tiêu biểu trên sàn chứng khoán việt nam tt tiếng anh

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
FOREIGN TRADE UNIVERSITY
---------

SUMMARY OF PHD THESIS

A STUDY OF THE IMPACTS OF CEO’S
CHARACTERISTICS ON THE PERFORMANCE OF A
NUMBER OF OUTSTANDING LISTED ENTERPRISES

Major: Business Administration
Code number: 9340101

Hanoi – 2019
The thesis is completed at: Foreign Trade University – No.91,
Chua Lang Street, Dong Da, Hanoi.
Science instructors:


1. Associate. Prof., Doctor of Science Nguyen Van Minh
2. Associate. Prof. PhD Cao Dinh Kien

Reviewer 1: ................................................................................
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Reviewer 2: ................................................................................
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Reviewer 3: ................................................................................
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The research shall be presented in front of the council meeting
at.............................

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INTRODUCTION
1. Research background
From the perspective of modern management, the CEO acts
as a spearhead for development, playing the make-or-break role in
every business. In addition, CEOs tend to be outstanding individuals
whose talents attest their competence at making important decisions
that greatly affect the performance and operation of organizations,
businesses run by them.
Studies of human psychology have shown that different
characteristics of demographics, behavioral psychology, experience,
seniority of work, personalities, and genders ... might exert a strong
influence to each individual’s behavior. This fact is well-applied to
CEOs as well, as leadership studies have shown that the style, habits,
or behaviors of a particular leader are the outward reflection of a
variety of this CEO’s typical characteristics and that has direct
impacts on the performance of organizations and businesses they run.
Therefore, the influence of a leader’s characteristics of on different
aspects of business operation has been one among many contents that
attract scholars and researchers in the field of business administration
worldwide.
Family-owned enterprise (FOE) is a business model derived
from the family form and is the basic model in economic
organization models in many countries in the world, especially in
Vietnam, where the family culture dominates most relationships in
society. Moreover, from the perspective of governance, FOEs always
have advantages in terms of organization, strategy or decision
making compared to other private or state-owned enterprises due to

the characteristics of family ownership, monitoring and operational
mechanism (Dieleman et al., 2013). Therefore, this is really a
business model with many typical elements for analysis and findings.
Although CEO plays an important role in the performance of
businesses, current discussions and studies on CEO are mostly
general, introductory. The theoretical basis lacks in-depth research on


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the CEO and the role of the CEO in specific types of businesses.
Moreover, in our country, current studies on CEOs still heavily relies
on theories available in the world, leading to inevitable inadequacies
and differences when applied in particular situations in Vietnam. That
is the main reason explaining the fact that information on CEOs is
redundant yet insufficient in Vietnam today.
From all the reasons mentioned above, the topic "A study of
the impacts of CEO's characteristic on the performance of a
number of outstanding listed enterprises businesses" is necessary
with implications both in theory and practice.
2. Research gap
Firstly, studies on the topic of the CEO's personal
characteristics, impacts of CEO's characteristics on the performance
of enterprises in the world are mostly restricted to approaching to
only one, or two to three distinct characteristics based on financial
primary data. There has not been any systematic study on individual
CEO’s characteristics or any assessment of the impacts of such
characteristics on the performance of an enterprise.
Secondly, studies show the omnidirectional influence of the
CEO's characteristics on an enterprise’s performance, and their
heterogeneous impact, which is likely to change at times.

Thirdly, the science of management in approaching to
anthropological and psychological characteristics is an attractive
research topic with many theoretical and application which can be
exploited in in corporate governance activities.
Fourthly, in Vietnam, current studies on CEO is limited to a
few general studies, and there are almost no studies on the influence
of CEO's personal characteristics on the performance of an
enterprise.
Fifth, in Vietnam, currently there are not any in-depth studies
on the personal characteristics of CEOs in a typical group / business
model, such as FOEs.
3. Research question


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(1) Do the CEO's characteristics influence the performance
of listed family-owned enterprises?
(2) How is the influence of CEO's characteristics on the of
performance of listed family-owned enterprises?
4. Research objectives
The thesis aims to study the impacts of CEO’s characteristics
on the performance on some outstanding listed enterprises, in which
the thesis focuses on a number of typical family-owned enterprises
today.
5. Research object and scope
5.1. Research object
The object of the research is the impacts of CEO’s
characteristics on the performance on some outstanding listed
enterprises.
5.2. Research scope

- Scope of content: The study focuses on identifying the
impacts of CEO’s characteristics on the performance on some
outstanding listed enterprises, in which CEO’s characteristics are
classified into two major groups: (1) the intrinsic characteristics of
the CEO - demographic characteristics, (2) CEO personal
characteristics related to seniority and management structure of the
enterprise - working characteristics. The thesis shall focus on
studying the influence of CEO's personal characteristics on the
performance of listed family-owned enterprises.
- Scope of space: the study carries out research on personal
characteristics of CEOs who are currently at the helm of listed
enterprises.
- Scope of time: the thesis chooses the study period from
2012-2018. It is because in the period before 2012, information on
corporate governance reports (CG) has not been given adequate
attention by the Vietnam's stock market. On the other hand, from
2012 to the present, the macro economy has only experienced steady
growth and development, the stock market has had positive


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developments. For these reasons, the scope of time the thesis is the
period of 2012-2018 to ensure adequate information from the
financial statements, annual reports and governance reports.
6. Research structure
The structure of the research is divided into five chapters
including chapter 1: Introduction; Chapter 2: Theoretical background for
the impacts of CEO’s characteristics on the performance of listed familyowned enterprises; Chapter 3: Research methodology; Chapter 4:
Analysis on the impacts of CEO’s characteristics on the performance of
listed family-owned enterprises; Chapter 5: Discussions and findings

and recommendations.
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. Theoretical background on CEO’s characteristics
Studies on the CEO's personal characteristics have been
conducted in-depth to explore the role and influence of these personal
characteristics on executive style and habits.
In general, all research directions indicate that the CEO's
personal characteristics have a strong influence on the style and
working habits, and leadership, thereby affecting many different
aspects of business operation. At present, there still exist many
perspectives of different views and approaches on CEO's
characteristics, however, from the author's perspective, it is possible
to refer to the research results of Hambrick and Mason (1984) who
form the basis of the approach to the personal characteristics of the
CEO. In particular, Hambrick and Mason, in their research, initially
affirm that the behavior of each CEO is the reflective side of a range
of personal characteristics factors such as age, education level,
seniority, typical characteristics. These groups of behavioral patterns
influence the decisions of the CEO in the process of running a
business, thereby affecting the operation outcomes and the
performance of an enterprise.
In summary, the CEO's personal characteristics can be


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divided into two main groups: (i) Demographic characteristics, (ii)
Working characteristics.
1.2. Theoretical background on the performance of
enterprises
Business performance has long been a topic of interest to

researchers because this is a measure to evaluate the effectiveness of
measures and tools that enterprises have been making use of during
its production and business activities. According to Hult et al. (2008),
although there are many different approaches and measures of firm
performance today, there are three commonly used performance
measurement criteria namely financial performance, operation
performance, or overall performance.
While there are many different approaches and
measurements of the above concept, one of the most widely studied
and considered aspects is the financial aspect, which is the result of
achieving the economic goals. Normally, to assess the performance of
businesses according to financial aspects (financial performance) one
of two ways of measurements shall be used: (i) Profit Indicator such
as the ratio of profit over the total assets (ROA), the ratio of profit
over the revenue (ROS), the return on equity (ROE); (ii) Market
indicators such as Tobin’s Q and market return ratio.
The above-stated studies reinforce the suitability of selecting
ROA and ROE as a reference to evaluate the performance of
enterprises in this thesis paper.
1.3. Theoretical background on family-owned enterprises
Family-owned enterprises is a form of primitive economic
organization that contributes greatly to the development of every
economy. Moreover, this is also a type of business with many distinct
characteristics. Therefore, researches on FOEs has been started since
the middle of the 20th century. Basically, researches on FOEs have
been conducted mainly on dissecting the nature of this type through
finding a sufficiently thorough and convincing definition. Some of
the studies on this topic by authors such as Litz (1995), Wortman

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(1995), Shanker and Astranchan (1996), Wall (1998) ... Though these
authors have different approaches to the nature of this type of
business, all focus on the basic factors that make up the basic
characteristics of such type of business such as: family ownership,
family control, number family members in executive committee….
In Vietnam, fully aware of the contribution that FOEs have
made to the overall development of the economy in recent years,
many scholars have recently conducted research to learn about the
type this business.
The research system in and outside Vietnam has reaffirmed
the typical character of this type of business, as well as the suitability
when the thesis selects FOEs as a typical enterprise type for study.
1.4. Theoretical background on the impacts of CEO's
characteristic on the performance of enterprises
In the world, this research direction appeared early and there
is evidence to conclude that CEO characteristics have an impact on
the business operation.
The results of the afore-mentioned studies around the world,
in Asia and in Vietnam, once again reaffirm that CEOs have the
ability to strongly impact the value of their enterprise. There are
some common points when discussing the personal characteristics of
the CEO and the impact of the above characteristics on the
performance of an enterprise:
- Presenting the concept of executive director's personal
characteristics;
- Pointing out the influential personal characteristics groups
of CEOs such as age, gender, ownership, remuneration of the CEO ...
that affect the working style and performance of the enterprise run by
them;

- Systematizing and classifying groups of individual
characteristics according to the degree of influence / impact on the
business performance.
CHAPTER 2: THEORIES OF THE IMPACTS OF CEO’S


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CHARACTERISTICS ON THE PERFORMANCE OF LISTED
FAMILY-RUN ENTERPRISES
2.1. Overview on Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
2.1.1. Concepts of CEO
Following the approach from the basic management model, the
CEO (Chief Executive Officer) - is the highest executive position of
an organization, in charge of overall operation of a corporation, an
enterprise, the organization or an agency, making the strategic
decisions of the organization, and being responsible to the board of
the organization. The equivalent term of the CEO can be the
managing director (MD - Managing Director - MacKenzie 2006) and
the executive director (CE - Chief Executive).
Currently, in the world, there exist a number of different
approaches to CEO. These approaches are generally dominated,
influenced by business culture, corporate governance model ...
The first approach: From the viewpoint of dual leadership, in
some companies the CEO is also the chairman of the board.
A second approach: Popular in several countries in the
European Union, two separate boards of leadership exist in the
operation of organizations, one in charge of day-to-day operation and
one in charge of providing orientation for the company (elected from
shareholders).
2.1.2. The role of the CEO in the performance of a

business
Depending on the organizational structure of each business,
CEO will be responsible for the different roles in the operations of
the organization. Basically, the role of the CEO is as a surviving
factor of a business due to their executive positions.
The CEO must run the company's daily business in accordance
with the law, the company's charter, the labor contract signed with the
company and the resolution of the Board of Directors. If operating in
contravention of this regulation causes damage to the company, the
Director or General Director must take responsibility before law and


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must pay damages to the company.
Whether by the first approach (concurrently responsible
responsibilities and rights, CEO and chairman of the Board of
Directors) or the second approach (CEO independent of the Board of
Directors), the CEO's role is generally related to every aspect of
every organization's operation.
2.1.3. Requirements to CEO
Requirements for the CEO in the process of running a business
is most evident through the requirement of the CEO's leadership
which is an important issue in businesses today. In terms of
leadership qualities, the typical studies are by Stodgdill (1948, 1974),
Mann (1959), Lord et al. (1986) and Kirkpartrick (1991). Regarding
the competence and skills of leaders, typical studies include those of
Mumford et al. (2000) and Yammarino (2000).
CEO's leadership is a combination of knowledge, skills and
qualities that a CEO needs in his leadership, subordinate team,
organizational leadership to achieve the goals of the business.

determined from the beginning. Specifically:
Leadership
knowledge:
Leadership
knowledge
is
theknowledge and understanding that a person acquires, accumulates
through experience or learn and is capable of applying to his
leadership.
Leadership skills: This is the ability to perform tasks, turn
knowledge into actions. Leadership skills show the proficiency of
each person when applying leadership knowledge in practical
management to achieve the set goals.
2.2. Overview on the personal characteristics of the CEO
2.2.1. Concepts of personal characteristics, personal
characteristics of CEOs
According to Holland (1960), “individual characteristics of a
person are a collection of personality traits and individual
psychological styles that dictate the manner in which individuals act
and how they respond to their surroundings.


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From the perspective of behavioral psychology, psychologist
Leochiev (1962) points out that: "The development of human
psychology and personality is closely connected with the
development of human activities in practice, in which some activities
play a major (leading) role, others play a minor (auxiliary) role.
Psychological studies have shown that not only the individual
characteristics of people but only the characteristics that regulate

people as a member of society speak up the psycho-social aspect,
values and personality of each individual. These attributes that make
up the distinctive characteristics of each individual are often
expressed on three levels: the level of internal individuals
(personality, thinking habits ...); interpersonal level (communication,
behavior, ability to influence ...) and the level of expression of its
activities and products (work results).
2.2.2. Some basic attributes of CEO personal
characteristics
According to Pham Minh Hac (1999), the individual
characteristics of each person are governed by four basic attributes:
stability, unity, activeness and interpersonal characteristics. At the
same time, the CEO's personal characteristics also carry all the basic
attributes of the personal trait.
This system of characteristics influences and influences the
handling habits and styles, resolves situations arising at work,
thereby affecting work efficiency and problem solving.
2.2.3. Approaches to the CEO's personal characteristics
Although there are many different approaches, it can be
basically divided into two main groups:
- Group 1 is demographic characteristics such as age,
nationality, gender, hometown, living culture, etc. These
characteristics are basic, have direct and fundamental influence on
CEO behavior and affect cognitive ability, thinking, work capacity ...
- Group 2 is the work characteristics such as industry, business
area, seniority, management experience, share ownership rate, part-


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time rights…. These characteristics are often greatly influenced by

objective factors, external environment, allowing explanation to
explain the unique characteristics of the CEO in each industry or
sector in which they participate.
2.3. Listed family-owned enterprises and the role of listed
family-owned enterprises in economic development
2.3.1. Overview on family-owned enterprises
Family-owned enterprise is one of the earliest economic
organizations of human society, and has made many positive
contributions to the development of economies around the world.
From the governance perspective, there are many advantages of
Family-owned company in terms of organizational, strategic or
decision-making features over other private or state-owned
enterprises. The strength of the family-owned company is the
cooperation between the key members. However, when family
ownership of the family-owned enterprise is passed down through the
generations, the heirs must share the ownership of the company in a
partnership. They must together decide how to manage and run the
family-owned enterprise as a common property, and that's when
corporate governance issues arise. The vast majority of family-owned
enterprise have difficulty in dealing with this management issue.
(Ward, 1988).
With many outstanding and unique advantages, the question of
whether or not an enterprise is a family-owned enterprise is still a top
concern of researchers (Peter, 2005). At present, there are still many
different definitions of family-owned enterprise depending on
different conditions such as culture, legal environment, religion,
production and business activities. Different ways of defining with
different criteria will influence the behavior and performance of the
business.
2.3.2. Overview concept of family-owned enterprise

Based on the review of the definition of FOEs in countries
around the world and the summary of researchers' approaches,


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derived from the practical necessity of establishing an appropriate
definition of family-owned enterprise based on practical conditions in
Vietnam.
Summarizing the research results, in order to give a complete
definition of Foes according to the subjective view of the thesis, it is
necessary to clarify FOEs in two aspects:
Quantitative: The number of family members founding and
participating in corporate governance activities and the percentage of
ownership control of family members. In terms of the number of
family members, most definitions determine that more than one
family member is involved in the business, on the company's board
of directors, and is usually the founding member of an enterprise.
(Villalonga and Amit (2006), Rutherford et al (2008)….
In qualitative terms: FOEs reflects the relationship between
family members, which is governed by the family's strategic direction
as well as the power - culture - experience element of the leadership
team.
2.3.3. The role of listed family-owned enterprises
The FOEs model in the development of the economy play an
important role and has strong influence on the performance of the
whole economy.
2.4. Performance of listed family companies
Operational efficiency is a complex issue involving factors in
the course of business operations. The performance of listed family
companies is similar to that of businesses which is generally verified

and reflected by financial results (financial results), including:
criteria for profitability and profitability which reflects market value.
2.5. The impacts of CEO personal characteristics on the
performance of listed family owned enterprises
Research on the impacts of the CEO on the performance of an
enterprise is not only restricted to the power but also is shown in a
number of characteristics such as the age of the CEO (Cheng et al,
2010); Srivivasan and Li 2011); ownership percentage of stock held


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(Coles et al., 2012; Lilienfeld-Total and Ruenzi, 2014); educational
level (Joh and Jung, 2016), gender (Shinghathep and Pholphirul,
2015; Ho et al., 2015) ... It can be seen that studies on the
relationship between CEO characteristics and brand performance is
quite diverse, but there is still no concrete and joint conclusion.
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODS
3.1. Development of research hypotheses and proposed
research variables
3.2.1. Research hypotheses: The system of 9 research
hypotheses includes:
- 6 research hypotheses that reflect the influence of CEO's
demographic characteristics on firm performance
H1: CEO's age has a positive relationship to the performance
of the business.
H2: CEO education has a positive relationship to the
performance of the business.
H3: Law degree of CEO is positively related to the
performance of the business.
H4: Female-CEO CEO has a positive influence on the

performance of the business.
H5: The relationship between the CEO's hometown and the
performance of the business ..
H6: The seniority of working in the state environment of the
CEO has a positive relationship to the performance of the business.
- 3 research hypotheses that reflect the impact of CEO's
performance on firm performance
H7: CEO duality is positively related to the performance of the
business.
H8: The share of CEO shares has a positive relationship to the
performance of the business.
H9: The change in personnel position of CEO has a positive
relationship to the performance of the business


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And the cross-correlation effects between the seniority
characteristics and the demographic characteristics of the CEO
3.1.2. The proposed research variables.
In order to orient the factors that belong to the CEO's
individual characteristics that may affect the performance of familyowned companies listed on Vietnam's stock market, the thesis has
summarized and inherited. The research results performed in the
world on the influence of CEO's individual characteristics on the
performance of enterprises on that basis, selecting and selecting 02
characteristics groups of CEOs to study are: (1) demographic
characteristics include AGE, GENDER, EDU, LAW, QQ, STATE; (2)
characteristics of seniority / working process: OWNERSHARE,
KIEMNHIEM, CHANGE.
Regarding the dependent variable, the performance of the
enterprise has many different ways / methods of measurement, but

from the viewpoint of this thesis, the author chooses to measure the
performance of the enterprise through the results. Financial results,
particularly the group of indicators that reflect the bookkeeping value
(ROA, ROE). To ensure the rigor of the research model, through a
preliminary discussion and consultation with a number of experts, the
control variables reflect the characteristics of the company: company
size is measured by total assets. of the enterprise (SIZE) and the
growth rate of the business (GROWTH)
3.2. Research data
The sample included all family owned enterprises listed on the
HCMC stock exchange. Ho Chi Minh City (HOSE) and Hanoi
(HNX).
The thesis uses 02 primary and secondary data sources
simultaneously for the research.
With secondary data, the thesis accesses information sources
from two types of reports: Annual Report (Annual Report) and
Financial Report (Financial Report).
With primary data, the thesis collects data in the form of in-


16
depth interviews with a sample size of 10 to investigate and verify
the analytical results of the quantitative analysis model.
3.3. Research Methods
3.3.1. Qualitative research methods
The in-depth interview method is a qualitative research
technique conducted by in-depth individual interviews with a small
number of respondents to assess their perspective on an issue,
program or specific situations (Boyce and Neale, 2006).
The thesis conducted interviews with 10 experts including 07

experts who are business executives (including family companies and
ordinary companies); 03 experts are researchers on the same topic at
universities and research institutes. The results of the thesis and
expert interviews are the basis for the author to make some
recommendations and recommendations in chapter 5.
3.3.2. Methods of analysis and processing of research data
The research model was formed on the basis of an overview of
domestic and foreign literature review combined with the
identification of operating characteristics of family-owned enterprises
to show the relationship between personal characteristics of CEOs. to
the performance of the business.
The regression equation for the author's research is as follows:

CHAPTER 4: ANALYSIS OF THE THE IMPACTS OF CEO’S
CHARACTERISTICS ON THE PERFORMANCE OF A
NUMBER OF OUTSTANDING LISTED ENTERPRISES IN


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THE PERIOD 2012 - 2018
4.1. Status quo of listed family-owned enterprises and the
status quo of corporate governance in listed family-owned
enterprises
4.1.1. Status quo of listed family-owned enterprises in
Vietnam
Based on the classification criteria of FOEs that the thesis
approached, currently in Vietnam there are a total of 57 FOEs listed
on the HOSE and HNX, the above enterprises contribute about half
of the total listed value. of the whole market. By business sector,
FOEs in Vietnam currently operates in 7 key sectors and industries

including basic materials, industry, consumer goods, health care,
infrastructure services, finance and technology (according to the ICB
industry standard - StockPlus).
FOE’s structure by sectors involved
No.
Sector
Number of enterprises
1
Finance
18
2
Consumer goods
16
3
Industry
9
4
Basic materials
8
5
Infrastructure services
3
6
Technology
1
7
Healthcare
1
TOTAl
57

4.1.2. Some issues raised in corporate governance of
family-owned enterprises in Vietnam
Include 03 typical content:
- Composition and structure of the BOD in family-owned
enterprises in Vietnam is not effective
- Succession issue and transfer plan between generations in
the family-owned enterprises.
- The lack of professionalism in business activities in the
family-owned enterprises.
4.2. Description of research sample


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Preliminary description of the characteristics of the
sample
Variable
ROA
ROE
AGE
OwnerSh
are
GROWT
H
TTS

Number of
observation
objects
399
399

399
399
399
399

Average

Standard
deviation

Min.

Max.

0.062
0.125
49.886

0.052
0.096
7.359

0.000
0.000
27.000

0.176
0.333
66.000

0.137

0.150

0.000

0.612

0.141

0.242

-0.819

1.316

12.4

37.7

14.2

32.9

In addition, due to the characteristics of qualitative variables,
there is not much meaning in the average, maximum and minimum
values. The thesis will use the method of calculating frequency over
years to analyze variables on characteristics of CEO's personalities
without counting statistical indicators such as quantitative variables.
4.3. Results of regression analysis

4.3.1. Analysis results for ROA
The results of the data analysis show the influence of the
CEO's personal characteristics on the ratio of profit to total assets
(ROA). In which: CEO's age has a positive relationship to enterprise
performance - confirming the H1 hypothesis; CEO's education, Law
degree, gender do not have much influence and opposite effect on
ROA - negate hypotheses H2, H3 and H4; The hometown of CEO
and seniority working in state agencies is really related to the
performance of the business - confirming the hypothesis H5 and H6.
In the group of working characteristics: variable KIEMNHIEM has
no impact on ROA, variable OWNERSHARE has impact (-) on
ROA, and CHANGE variable has (+) impact on ROA.
4.3.2. Analysis results for ROE


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The results of the data analysis show the influence of the
CEO's personal characteristics on the return on equity (ROE). In
which: CEO's age has a positive relationship to firm's performance confirming the H1 hypothesis; CEO's education, Law degree, gender
do not have much influence and opposite effect on ROE - negate
hypotheses H2, H3 and H4; The hypothesis of H5, H6 was
reaffirmed. In the group of working characteristics: the variable
KIEMNHIEM has no impact on ROE, the OWNERSHARE variable
has an effect (-) on ROE, and CHANGE has an effect (+) on ROE.
4.3.3. Analysis results using variables for ROA.
The combination of the OWNERSHARE variable helps to
increase the influence of the majority of variables describing the
demographic characteristics of the CEO, demonstrating the increase
in personal benefits for the CEO during the process of running the
business. available advantages of personal characteristics such as

confidence, experience ... help create a positive impact on the
performance of the business.
In contrast, when combined with the CHANGE variable, the
characteristics that describe education and expertise (EDU and LAW
variables) as well as AGE variables do not work. Therefore, it can be
concluded that at the current stage of FOEs, the change of CEO is
often influenced by many other factors, not merely by the
characteristics of the CEO.
4.3.4. Analysis results using variables for ROE.
With ROE, when combined with the OWNERSHARE
variable, the variables AGE, GENDER, LAW, QQ, AGE, and STATE
are increased. Therefore, it can be seen that the personal
characteristics of the CEO help to increase the impact on the
performance of FOEs in terms of equity. At the same time, when
combined with the CHANGE task description feature, the results are
quite similar.
From that, it can be concluded that the CEO's personal
characteristics include demographic characteristics and business


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characteristics that directly and indirectly affect the performance of
the FOEs currently listed on the stock market of Vietnam.
CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION ON THE RESEARCH RESULTS
OF THE THESIS AND A NUMBER OF RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1. Discussions on the research results
From the above quantitative and qualitative research findings
of the thesis, some of the following conclusions can be drawn about
the influence of personal characteristics of executives on the
performance of listed FOEs:

First, the personal characteristics of the CEO as well as the
characteristics of the human being are the combination of many
different characteristics, helping to form the psychological
characteristics and personality of each individual, controlling the
habit of problem solving, decision making, etc., thereby affecting the
work results and the management efficiency which is expressed
through the business performance.
Second, the CEO's personal characteristics are generally a
combination of two main characteristics groups (i) demographic
characteristics such as gender, age, cultural awareness level, etc. (ii)
working characteristics directly related to the business.
Third, among the demographic characteristics of CEOs,
gender and education level are the characteristics that have the most
obvious influence on the performance of enterprises.
Fourth, women are the dominant force in the comparative
correlation of firm performance.
Fifth, due to the strong influence of the historical context,
social characteristics, seniority in the state agencies of Vietnam CEO
is also one of the interesting characteristics.
Sixth, there exist different influences on the performance of
FOEs in the sample.
Seventh, the characteristics related to the CEO's work such as


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stock ownership, changes in CEO personnel, and the right to hold
other managerial positions in the BOD in the FOEs model do not
create much impact on the performance of the CEO and the business
performance.
5.2. The growing trend of family-owned enterprises

The present time is defined as an important stage to realize
the necessity of change, due to the positive impact of institutions,
especially the legal system to protect the inheritance property rights.
While managing change well, we do not forget to promote and
update family cultural values so that family businesses increasingly
contribute to the sustainable development of the country.
5.3. Recommendations, suggestions
5.3.1. Recommendations - proposals for family companies
- Developing an effective family-owned corporate
governance mechanism: to ensure the separation in management and
operation, as well as increase the power of the CEO to ensure the
efficiency of business operations.
- Enhancing the capacity building, raising the education level
for the CEO team: by equipping with more knowledge on
administration, law, etc. to improve the executive management
capacity of the CEO.
- Considering recruiting and using experienced CEO /
seniority in the state agencies environment
- Developing incentive policies and mechanisms to help
promote the capacity of the executive team
- Creating more leadership opportunities for female CEOs,
consider choosing women in senior executive positions of businesses
- Establishinging a mechanism of assessment and selection of
CEO based on a system of specific and scientific evaluation criteria:
aiming to treat the CEO as a career with clear evaluation criteria like
other career titles.
- Increasing the role of CEO in FOEs model
5.3.2. Recommendations - proposals to investors

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Investors should invest in listed family-owned enterprises
because of the potential and development prospects of this type of
business.
In investment, there is a need to pay more attention to
information about the executive director, about the health status of
the business so that appropriate decisions can be made.
CONCLUSION
The topic of CEO and the personal characteristics that make
up psychological characteristics, behavioral habits (CEO's
characteristic) and the influence of these personal characteristics on
the overall performance has been the topic that attracts the attention
of many researchers and experts.
Along with findings on the influence of personal
characteristics of the executive director on the listed family-owned
enterprises, the thesis also summarizes the definitions of familyowned enterprises in order to explain the appropriateness of the
above target of zoning enterprises is typical and worthy of research.
By summarizing domestic and foreign research works on the topic of
CEO and influencing the personal characteristics of CEO, the thesis
has pointed out the research gap and developed a system of research
hypotheses for analysis and clarify research topics and objectives.
The research method is a combination of quantitative and qualitative
methods, using the FEM (Fixed Effect Model); REM (Random Effect
Model) model and Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) and
then model selection test. The results show that the GMM model is
used appropriately in both cases when the dependent variable reflects
the firm's performance, ROA and ROE. Qualitative research with indepth interview technique with experienced experts and general
interest on the topic of CEOs helps support the development of
documents, provide additional research results and make some
recommendations to promote the positive effects of executive

23
director characteristics on the performance of the business.
Some research conclusions are drawn from the thesis
include:
- Personal characteristics of CEOs as well as human
characteristics are the combination of many different characteristics,
helping to create psychological characteristics of each individual
personality, which dominates the habit approach, handle problems,
make decisions.
- Personal characteristics of CEOs are generally a
combination of 02 main characteristics groups (i) demographic
characteristics such as gender, age, cultural awareness level .... (ii)
working characteristics directly related to the business.
- In the group of CEO demographic characteristics, gender
and education level are the characteristics that have the most obvious
influence on the performance of enterprises.
- currently, female CEOs only make up a minority in the
ranks of senior management and executive officers in the business,
but it is the dominant force in the comparative correlation of the
performance of the business.
- Experience of working in state agencies is one of typical
characteristics of Vietnam.
- The characteristics related to the CEO's work such as share
ownership, changes in CEO personnel, and the right to concurrently
hold other managerial positions in the BOD in the family planning
model do not create much impact on performance of an enterprise.
Based on the research results combined with the support and
suggestions of experts, the thesis also proposed 04 groups of basic

solutions to motivate the positive effects of CEO’s characteristics on
the performance of an enterprise.
Besides, from the research background of the thesis, it is
possible to open some research development directions such as:
- Researching, and considering to add some other
characteristics of executives, which may affect behavioral


24
psychology, thereby affecting the performance of enterprises such as
religion, military history people, MBA, specific labor contracts,
beliefs, beliefs ....
- Studying the influence of executive characteristics on the
performance of enterprises based on two groups of FOEs and nonFOEs to compare the impact / impact on the performance of
enterprises
- Researching, and considering to add some other variables to
measure the performance of enterprises: balanced scorecard, ...
THE LIST OF PAPERS PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR
1. Cao D.K và Hoàng H.Y (2013), Headquarter Relocation: Financial
Performance and Stock Market Reaction, External Economics
Review 2013, No 59, pages 60-72.
2. Cao D.K, Hoàng H.Y và Trần M.N (2016), Impact of CEO’s
characteristics on firm performance: The case of Vietnam, External
Economics Review 2016.
3. Hoang Hai Yen (2020), Managing a listed family-owned enterprise
in Vietnam – a practical view, Journal of Management and
International Economics, No. 125, pp 61-71.
4. Hoang Hai Yen (2020), The role of female executives to the
performance of businesses: case studies at family-owned enterprises
listed on Vietnam's stock market, Journal of Management and

International Economics, No. 126, pp 118-130
5. Hoang Hai Yen and Nguyen Quynh Anh (2020), Influence of the
CEO's education on the performance of enterprises in the context of
globalization today - case studies at foreign companies listed on the
Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HOSE), Proceedings of a
national scientific conference, under the topic Nafosted, code 502.99
- 2018.04, pages 174 - 189.