CEO foreign experience and firm leverage: evidence from Vietnam

The study examines whether CEOs with foreign experience affect the corporate financing decisions in the Vietnamese market. Foreign-experienced CEOs are defined as those who worked and/or studied abroad before returning to Vietnam. Using a unique, manually collected dataset of 322 non-financial firms listed on the Ho Chi Minh stock exchange (HOSE) from 2013 to 2021, we find that CEOs with international experience are associated with lower financial leverage, suggesting that such leaders generally prefer less financial risk compared to their peers. We propose that this conservatism is likely due to their limited local networks and the weak institutional framework in Vietnam, which mitigate the benefits of their global expertise. Our findings support the notion from existing literature that a scarcity of social connections may cause CEOs to become more risk-averse, prompting them to choose more conservative financial decisions.

本研究考察具备海外经历的首席执行官（Chief Executive Officer，CEO）是否会对越南市场中的企业融资决策产生影响。具备海外经历的CEO被定义为在返回越南前曾在海外工作或求学的人士。本研究使用2013年至2021年间在胡志明市证券交易所（Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange，HOSE）上市的322家非金融企业的独家手动采集数据集，研究发现，拥有国际经历的CEO与更低的财务杠杆水平相关，这表明相较于同行，这类领导者普遍更倾向于规避财务风险。本研究提出，这种保守决策倾向或源于其有限的本地人脉网络以及越南薄弱的制度框架，这会削弱其全球专业知识所能带来的收益。本研究结果支持现有文献中的相关观点：社会联系匮乏可能会使CEO更具风险规避倾向，进而促使其选择更为保守的财务决策。