IMPACT OF THE BOARD MEETING AND GENDER DIVERSITY TO FIRM PERFORMANCE: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY IN VIETNAM

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to determine the influence of the board of director's (BOD's) characteristics, such as the board meeting frequency, the participants and the gender diversity of listed companies on the firm performance in Vietnam. Design/methodology/approach: Dependent variables represented the firm performance are measured by financial ratios, such as ROA. The research sample include 78 companies in the Top VN100 companies (ranked in 2014) listed on the Vietnamese stock exchange in the period from 2013 to 2015 with a total of 234 observations. The authors collected and analyzed data from the audited financial statements, management reports, and annual reports of companies. Findings: The research results show that the frequency of board meetings negatively affect the firm performance. The boards meet more often following poor financial performance. The proportion of members attending the meeting does not affect the firm performance. In addition, the female directors enhance BOD's effectiveness. Research/practical implications: The findings of this study will help Vietnamese firms, investors and regulators to review the implications of the current board activities, especially improve the quality of board meetings and the board gender diversity to get more effectively in Vietnam to increase firm performance. Future studies may expand the sample size and study period in combination with other related variables such as ratio of board attendance or examining the effect of various kinds of meetings on firm performance to obtain more valuable research results. Originality/value: we suggest the policy debate by providing empirical evidence supporting the business case for board diversity.