Study of relationship between managerial ownership and agency cost: Empirical evidence from Vietnamese listed firm (HOUSE)
Abstract
This paper aims to examine the possible impact of managerial ownership on agency cost
in the context of Vietnam. The study uses three agency cost measurements, i.e. operating
expense ratio, asset utilisation ratio (asset turnover), and ratio of free cash flow to total
assets, which proxy for management’s perquisite consumption, efficiently use of asset,
and efficiently use of free cash flow, respectively. The research is conducted with a
sample data of 100 non-financial listed firms on HOSE in the tenor of 2008 – 2012.
Multivariate regression was employed to observe the relation between managerial
ownership and three proxies of agency costs. The results, in the end, report that
managerial ownership has no significant influence on operating expense and free cash
flow. However, there is statistical evidence supporting that managerial ownership is
positively associated with asset utilisation, after controlling for firm age, firm size, and
leverage. The result implies that the possibility of managerial ownership reduce agency
costs through improving efficiency of asset utilisation.