The Determinants of Profitability in Listed Enterprises: A Study from Vietnamese Stock Exchange

Abstract

The research aims to investigate the determinants of the financial performance of 1343 Vietnamese companies categorized into six different industries listed on the Vietnamese Stock Exchange over a four-year period from 2014 to 2017 using STATA software. Those determinants include firm size, liquidity, solvency, financial leverage, and financial adequacy while the financial performance is evaluated by three different ratios: return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), and return on sales (ROS). The research results from these companies during the given period indicate that: (1) Firm size has a positive impact on both ROA and ROS, especially ROA but it has the opposite effect on ROE, (2) Adequacy ratio impacts positively on ROA and ROS but negatively on ROE, (3) Financial leverage considerably negative influences on ROE and ROS but positively impacts on ROA, (4) Liquidity has a positive effect on both ROA and ROE but a negative one on ROS and (5) Solvency has a positive impact on ROA and ROS but the negative impact on ROE. Furthermore, agriculture accounted for the highest percentage of profitability at the beginning, which was replaced by service for ROA but manufacture for ROE from 2016 to 2017 as opposed to the least in transportation.