Duong Khoa Dang, Huynh Tran Ngoc, Nguyen Diep Van, Le Hoa Thanh Phan
Faculty of Finance and Banking, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam.
Faculty of Finance and Banking, Ho Chi Minh City Open University, Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam.
Heliyon. 2022 Aug 30;8(9):e10474. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e10474. eCollection 2022 Sep.
The energy sector in Vietnam has developed rapidly as the country is transitioning to renewable energy. Moreover, the Vietnamese government also motivates the engagement of private investors in the energy sector to enhance the competitiveness of the energy market. Therefore, this paper investigates how innovation investments and ownership concentration affect the financial sustainability of energy companies in Vietnam. We employ the Fixed Effect Model and Generalized Method of Moments estimations to analyze the sample, including 600 firm-year observations of 103 energy companies from January 2007 to December 2020. The empirical findings show that innovations and block-holders support firms to grow sustainably. The positive relationship between innovation investments and financial sustainability is robust even when we employ alternative proxies of innovation investments. Our study indicates that block-ownership affects sustainable developments of smaller energy firms, while innovation investments significantly improve the sustainability of larger energy firms. Finally, our study reports that the Covid-19 pandemic adversely affects the financial sustainability of energy firms. Our findings align with agency theory, resource-based theory, and prior literature. Our findings recommend that energy firms motivate innovation investments such as training and R&D activities to grow sustainably. In addition, the Vietnamese government should encourage small energy firms to attract blockholders to improve financial sustainability.
随着越南向可再生能源转型，该国的能源部门发展迅速。此外，越南政府还鼓励私人投资者参与能源部门，以提高能源市场的竞争力。因此，本文研究了创新投资和所有权集中度如何影响越南能源公司的财务可持续性。我们采用固定效应模型和广义矩估计方法对样本进行分析，样本包括2007年1月至2020年12月期间103家能源公司的600个公司年度观测值。实证结果表明，创新和大股东支持公司可持续发展。即使我们采用创新投资的替代代理变量，创新投资与财务可持续性之间的正相关关系仍然稳健。我们的研究表明，大股东所有权影响较小能源公司的可持续发展，而创新投资显著提高较大能源公司的可持续性。最后，我们的研究报告称，新冠疫情对能源公司的财务可持续性产生了不利影响。我们的研究结果与代理理论、资源基础理论和先前的文献一致。我们的研究结果建议，能源公司应鼓励开展培训和研发活动等创新投资，以实现可持续发展。此外，越南政府应鼓励小型能源公司吸引大股东，以提高财务可持续性。
