STATE BANK OF VIETNAM BANKING ACADEMY  NGUYEN THI TUYET LAN TARGET CAPITAL STRUCTURE OF CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY ENTERPRISES LISTED ON THE STOCK MARKET OF VIETNAM Major: Finance and banking ID: 62340201 PhD DISSERTATION SUMMARY HANOI - 2019 THE DISSERTATION IS COMPLETED AT BANKING ACADEMY Scientific instructors: Assoc Prof Le Van Luyen Assoc Prof Nguyen Thi Hoai Le Reviewers: The dissertation will be defensed before the Dissertation Assessment Council at Banking Academy At: Date: This dissertation can be found at: - National Library - Banking Academy’s library INTRODUCTION Rationale of the topic In the context of international economic integration, economic sectors, especially capital intensive industries such as Construction industry, have access to more capital sources to expand scale and growth During the period from 2005 to 2009, the annual average growth rate of the construction industry reached 9.6% and it reached 4.6% during the 2010-2015 period It is estimated that from now to 2020, Vietnam needs to attract about VND 202 trillion each year to develop transport infrastructure and about VND 125 trillion each year for electricity infrastructure projects This will be a tremendous resource for the construction industry to develop in the future However, in addition to the development opportunities, enterprises in the construction industry in Vietnam still face many difficulties since the economy started to integrate and develop These issues make construction enterprises increasingly interested in the problem of corporate financial management with the focus on capital structure issues of enterprises Appropriate target capital structure will help construction industry enterprises maximize the value of enterprises, limit financial risks and be a solid foundation to help businesses cope with fluctuations from outside The study of capital structure, especially the factors affecting capital structure of the construction industry is very necessary and highly practical in practice Capital structure is an important issue in corporate financial management Therefore, researchs on capital structure attract much attention from scientists all over the world as well as those in Vietnam Since the publication of Modiglani & Miller (1958), many authors have done researches on capital structures in developed countries such as Rajan and Zingales (1995) (Countries G-7), Burgman (1996) (USA), Bevan and Danbolt (2002) (England), Akhtar and Oliver (2009) (Japan) and developing countries such as Booth et al (2001) ( Brazil, Mexico, India, Korea, Jordan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Thailand, Turkey and Zimbabwe), Pandey (2001) (Malaysia), Chen (2003) (China) In Vietnam, in recent years, many researches on capital structure have been done For example, researches by Le Dat Chi (2013), Vo Thi Quy (2014), Le Thi Thanh Tu (2012), Do Van Thang and Trinh Quang Thieu (2010), Le Hoang Vinh (2009) In the context that the world economy is in recession and the domestic economic situation still has many difficulties, in order to survive and develop, businesses need to maximize their internal strengths Building a proper capital structure is also a way for businesses to promote that power Capital structures that depend mostly on debt or skews to the use of equity may be appropriate at this stage but not at another stage Thus, in the world and in Vietnam there have been many researches on capital structure Dealing with capital structure, first, managers must consider what are the factors affecting capital structure and how they affect capital structure Then, managers should also know the effect of capital structure on the performance of their companies There have been many empirical studies on the factors affecting capital structure, each study dispersed into different areas However, the factors affecting capital structure and the impact of capital structure on the performance of the construction industry are almost limited Therefore, the author chooses the topic: "Target capital structure of construction industry enterprises listed on the stock market of Vietnam" as the dissertation topic Research objectives This dissertation analyzes the target capital structure through analyzing the capital structures of listed construction companies on Vietnam's stock market The results of empirical analysis will be one of the important bases for investors and managers to decide more appropriate capital structure to improve the performances of enterprises Specifically, the study will answer the following questions: i) What are the factors that affect the capital structure of listed construction companies on the stock market of Vietnam? ii) How does capital structure affect business performance (profit margin) of construction companies listed on the stock market of Vietnam? iii) Determine the target capital structures for listed construction companies in Vietnam's stock market Research subject and scope - Research matters: Capital structure and target capital structure of construction companies listed on Vietnam stock market Specifically, the dissertation studies the effects of factors on the capital structures of construction companies listed on Vietnam's stock market From the research model, the dissertation builds the target capital structure for construction companies listed on the Vietnam stock market - Research subject: Construction industry companies listed on the stock market of Vietnam - Research scope: The dissertation carried out survey and practical analysis for 109 construction industry companies listed on Vietnam stock market In which, there are 75 companies listed on Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX) and 34 companies listed on Hochiminh Stock Exchange (See Appendix 1) With secondary data collected during the period from 2005 to 2017 and primary data is taken in 2018 - Research perspective: This is an independent research which is done with the perspective of managers of construction industry enterprises New contributions of the dissertation The dissertation makes contribution on both theoreotical and practical aspects Theoretical aspects: First, this research reviews, analyzes and evaluates theories and research findings on factors affecting enterprises’ capital structures and the role of capital structure to enterprises’ performances As a result, this research will make a certain contribution to the systemization and development of theories about capital structure and theoretical views about enterprises’ target capital structures Secondly, this research contributes to the development of measurement methods for enterprises’ target capital structures Thirdly, this dissertation is a combination of academic research and application research In this research, a model is developed to test the hypotheses and interviews and surveys are conducted to allege the research result Thus, this dissertation has developed one more step in term of methodology and research tools for this topic This dissertation is first developed to provide an academic analysis on how to build target capital structures for enterprises and assess its impact on business performances I expect that the method suggested from this research will be applied in the financial management process of enterprises in the construction industry in particular and those of businesses in Vietnam in general Practical aspects: First, the dissertation’s result provides researchers and financial managers with comprehensive view of how to approach and measure enterprises’ target capital structures Secondly, the research evaluates the impact of target capital structure on enterprises’ performance It has showed that using debts will result in positive performances of businesses at first However, once the threshold is exceeded, the use of debt will adversely affect the performance of enterprises Thirdly, this dissertation uses both quantitative and qualitative research methods Through the quantitative model developed, the research has constructed the target capital structure and evaluated its impact on the performances of enterprises in the construction industry which are listed on Vietnam stock market At the same time, the dissertation exploits a qualitative research tool which is in-depth interviews with financial managers to evaluate the quantitative research result Thus, this dissertation can be a reference for research methodology, research design, research model and data processing for researchers, lecturers and students of the same interest Dissertation’s structure Apart from the table of content, list of abbreviations, List of tables, list of charts, list of reference and appendices, the dissertation is structured into following chapters: Chapter 1: Overview of researches and theoreotical basis about capital structure and target capital structure of enterprises Chapter 2: Research methodology Chapter 3: Current situation of capital structures and performances of construction industry enterprises listed on the stock market of Vietnam for the period from 2005 to 2017 Chapter 4: Empirical research result about capital structure and target capital structure of construction industry enterprises listed on the stock market of Vietnam Chapter 5: Suggested solutions for building the target capital structure in order to enhance the performances of construction industry enterprises listed on the stock market of Vietnam CHAPTER OVERVIEW OF RESEARCHES AND THEOREOTICAL BASIS ABOUT CAPITAL STRUCTURE AND TARGET CAPITAL STRUCTURE OF ENTERPRISES 1.1 Overview of researches about capital structure and target capital structure 1.1.1 Foreign researches 1.1.2 1.1.3 Researches in Vietnam Research hole Theoretical and empirical studies in the world have shown that there are many different factors affecting the capital structure of businesses Different observed samples and data in different time periods give very different conclusions Therefore, when discussing factors that have a real impact on the capital structure of enterprises, we must consider and analyze based on the specific characteristics of the research object At the same time, to determine the target capital structure of enterprises, it is necessary to base on the estimated results of the model of factors affecting the capital structure of enterprises In Vietnam, there have been many researches on capital structure However, there has not been any specific study on capital structure and target capital structure for construction industry enterprises listed on Vietnam stock market On the other hand, previous researches on capital structure of enterprises are done using data for a short period of to years which are not long enough to see the long-term trend Therefore, this dissertation, on the basis of inheriting the advantages of the previous studies such as the theoretical basis of the factors affecting the capital structure of enterprises and the impact of capital structure on business performance of enterprises, etc., will fulfill the following research holes: i) Summarize and give theoretical views on the target capital structure of enterprises; ii) Analysis of factors affecting capital structure, thereby building the target capital structure for enterprises; iii) The dissertation analyzes the impact of target capital structure on business performance of listed construction companies on Vietnam's stock market; iv) The thesis conducted in-depth interviews with financial managers of enterprises to reaffirm the quantitative research result 1.2 Theoreotical basis about capital structure and target capital structure 1.2.1 Overview of capital structure 1.2.2 Theories about capital structure Durand’s traditional theory about capital structure Modigliani and Miller’s capital structure theory Trade-off theory about capital structure Pecking order theory The market timing theory 1.1.2 Target capital structure of enterprises The target capital structure is the capital structure associated with the operational objectives of the business at each stage, when the business objectives of the enterprise change, the target capital structure also changes Thus, the target capital structure is not a static concept Measuring the target capital structure is to measure the capital structure associated with the business objectives More specifically, the target capital structure is planned by the company to mobilize more capital Target capital structure may change when the conditions change Target capital structure is a structure that a business often uses when deciding to expand its business capital In fact, the capital structure of enterprises can fluctuate around the target structure for two reasons First, business leaders can make decisions based on specific situations For example, the temporary increase in share prices will create a golden opportunity for businesses to issue shares and increase the equity ratio Secondly, the market prices of corporate stocks and bonds are always volatile, leading to a real capital structure deviating from the target capital structure In the capital structure trade-off theory (TOT), the decision maker of the capital structure of the enterprise will review and evaluate all costs and benefits in situations of other capital structure states This theory assumes that enterprises when making capital structure decisions will achieve a balance between marginal cost and marginal benefits Unlike the static trade-off theory of capital structure that provides the optimal capital structure solution in a period, the dynamic trade-off theory of capital structure emphasizes the importance of time, the role of expectations and cost adjustment (Fischer, Heinkel and Zechner, 1989) This has flexibility in deciding the capital structure of businesses According to the dynamic trade-off theory of capital structure, enterprises will try to adjust the capital structure towards the target capital structure In this dynamic model, factors that affect the target capital structure have been addressed and considered more comprehensively compared to the static model such as profitability, dividends and corporate income tax career On the other hand, Myers (1984) and Myers and Majluf (1984) developed a betting model on the basis of asymmetric information theory Under this approach, managers not follow any target capital structure, but they have a priority order on different financial sources: equity (ie unallocated income), external debt financing and equity financing At the same time, Myers (1984) pointed out that the target capital structure cannot be directly observed but can only be estimated from experimentation, the actual tax law is much more complex than the assumptions of theories, and the cost of bankruptcy causes real losses rather than be transferred from one person to another as in theory, and transaction costs must also be taken into account The target capital structure in this dissertation is based on the theory of dynamic exchange and based on the view of Myers (1984) Specifically, the target capital structure model is as follows: CCVit = + Xit + it (*) where CCVit is the capital structure of enterprises i at time t, which is measured by total debt on total assets (Tran Thi Bich Ngoc, 2017; Vo Minh Long, 2017; Dang Thi Quynh Anh and Quach Thi Hai Yen, 2014; Zeitun and Tian , 2007; Ebaid, 2009 and Pratheepkanth, 2011); X it is the vector of factors affecting capital structure; it is noise The estimated results of the model (*) are the enterprise's target capital structure at time t 1.3 Factors affecting capital structure 1.3.1 Microeconomic factors 1.2.1 Macroeconomic factors 1.4 Impact of target capital structure on enterprises’ performance 1.4.1 Enterprises’ business performance 1.4.2 The role of capital structure to enterprises’ business performance CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY This dissertation exploits both quantitative and qualitative research methods Quantitative research is used to evaluate factors affecting enterprises' capital structure, and via this model, the dissertation builds the target capital structure for construction industry enterprises listed on Vietnam stock market After that, the dissertation assesses the impact of target capital structure on enterprises' performance Finally, the dissertation uses a qualitative research tool which is in-depth interview with financial management managers to evaluate quantitative research results from the perspective of experts and practical applications 2.1 Analytical framework and research model Based on the trade-off theory of capital structure, pecking order theory, theory of corporate finance and based on the results of empirical researches summarized in Chapter 1, the dissertation uses the analytical framework as shown in Figure 2.1 below Figure 2.1 The dissertation’s analytical framework Enterprise scale Non-debt tax benefit Enterprise’s capital structure Profitability Tangible fixed assets Real tax rate Growth opportunities Enterprise’s target capital structure Enterprise’s performance Risks Liquidity In-depth interviews with financial managers Dividend payment ratio Enterprise’s own charateristics Source: Builded by the author based on theoretical basis According to this analytical framework, the dissertation will perform two empirical analyses First, this research analyzes the factors affecting the capital structure of enterprises Based on the model estimation results, the dissertation will build the target capital structure for enterprises Secondly, the research analyzes the effect of the target capital structure on business performance Finally, to reevaluate the results of quantitative research, the author conducts in-depth interviews with financial managers of construction enterprises listed on Vietnam's stock market Based on the research model of Drobetz and Wanzenried (2006) and research by Tran Hung Son (2011), the dissertation builds the model of factors affecting capital structure as follows: CCV = β0 + β1*SIZE + β2*NDTS + β3*PRFT + β4*TANG + β5*TAX + β6*GROWTH + β5*RISK + β5*LIQ + β5*DIV + β5*UNIQ + ui (2.1) Based on the research model of Doan Vinh Thang (2016) and Doan Ngoc Phuc (2014), the dissertation builds the model estimating the influence of the target capital structure on the performances of enterprises as follows: HQHĐ = β0 + β1*CCVMT + β2*SIZE + β3*PRFT + β4*TANG + β5*GROWTH + β6*LIQ + ui (2.2) 2.2 Data sources The research data used for quantitative research are taken from StockPlus with research subjects that are companies in construction industry in Vietnam listed on the two exchanges namely HNX and HOSE in the period of 2005-2017 2.3 Estimation method 2.4 Qualitative method Besides the quantitative research method discussed above, the dissertation uses additional qualitative research method to re-evaluate the result found by the quantitative research Specifically, the dissertation surveyed a number of listed construction enterprises on the Vietnamese stock market The author conducts in-depth interviews with financial managers of enterprises on their assessment of the model used by this dissertation to build enterprises’ target capital structure, and has them compare it with the actual ways exploited by enterprises to build their target caiptal structure Also, enterprises’ financial managers are asked to give their assessment of the impact of target capital structure on the performance of their enterprises During the interview process, the author integrates new ideas and findings from the previous interview into the next interviews, and finally all the new ideas and findings were used by the author for data analysis The interview sample selected includes financial managers (Chief Financial Officer / Chief Accountant) of construction industry enterprises listed on Vietnam stock market, which have the highest and low debt use indice According to statistics from quantitative data, there are about 6/109 businesses with debt use rate of less than 30% per year and 39/109 businesses with debt use rate of over 80% The interview sample is focused on these businesses Specifically, the dissertation asked all enterprises having the debt utilization rate of less than 30% and only enterprises with debt use of over 80% Due to the requests of the interviewed subjects, the dissertation does not disclose information about the interviewees The time for conducting interviews is from July to August 2018 CHAPTER CURRENT SITUATION OF CAPITAL STRUCTURES AND PERFORMANCES OF CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY ENTERPRISES LISTED ON THE STOCK MARKET OF VIETNAM FOR THE PERIOD FROM 2005 TO 2017 3.1 Overview of the construction industry in Vietnam 3.1.1 Historical development of the construction industry 3.1.2 Characteristics of Vietnam construction industry 3.1.3 Construction costs 3.1.4 Construction market 3.2 Current situation of capital structures and performances of construction industry enterprises listed on the stock market of Vietnam for the period from 2005 to 2017 CHAPTER EMPIRICAL RESEARCH RESULT ABOUT CAPITAL STRUCTURE AND TARGET CAPITAL STRUCTURE OF CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY ENTERPRISES LISTED ON THE STOCK MARKET OF VIETNAM 4.1 Statistical description and correlation among variables 4.2 Estimation result and discussion 4.2.1 Estimation result and discussion about factors affecting the capital structures of construction industry enterprises listed on the stock market of Vietnam The model used for analysis is a robusted random effect model because Hausman test gives a large p-value The estimated effects of the factors affecting capital structure of listed enterprises in Construction industry are shown in Table 4.3 Estimation result shows that tangible fixed assets (TANG), Actual Tax Rate (TAX), Growth Opportunities (GROWTH), Risk (RISK), not affect the target capital structure of listed enterprises in construction industry This result does not support research hypotheses H4, H5, H6, H7 In contrast, the regression coefficients of the Scale factors (SIZE), Non-debt tax benefits (NDTS), corporate profitability (PRFT) Liquidity (LIQ), Dividend payment ratio (DIV) and the characteristics of corporate assets (UNIQ) are significant at 10% level This implies that these factors affect the capital structure of enterprises listed in Construction industry in Vietnam Some have positive effects and some have negative effects In addition, the estimation of the capital structure derived from the model is the target capital structure of enterprises (Doan Vinh Thang, 2016) Based on the model’s estimation result, the author builds the average target capital structure of listed construction enterprises on Vietnam stock market over the years as shown in Table 4.4 Table 4.4 Average target capital structure of construction industry enterprises listed on the stock market of Vietnam for the period from 2005 to 2017 Lower bound of target Upper bound of target Year capital structure capital structure 2005 0,641 0,661 2006 0,647 0,662 2007 0,614 0,664 2008 0,617 0,663 2009 0,638 0,659 2010 0,645 0,655 2011 0,648 0,657 2012 0,650 0,659 2013 0,640 0,658 2014 0,642 0,658 2015 0,647 0,658 2016 0,626 0,642 2017 0,614 0,638 Source: Calculated by the author Accordingly, the average target capital structure of construction industry enterprises listed on Vietnam stock market over the years is relatively stable (about 60%) 4.2.2 Estimation result and discussion about the impact of target capital structure on performance of construction industry enterprises listed on the stock market of Vietnam The model used for analysis is a robusted fixed effect model because Hausman test give small p-value results The estimation of the effects of target capital structure on the performance of listed construction enterprises is shown in Table 4.5 and Table 4.6 Estimation result with ROA (Table 4.5) indicates that regression coefficient associated with target capital structure is negative and significant at 10% level of significance This implies that target capital structure has adserve effect on the rate of return on assets of listed construction enterprises in Vietnam This result does not support the research hypothesis H11 However, the result supports the view of Maslis (1983) Accordingly, if the debt ratio is in the range of 0.23 to 0.45, the debt ratio positively affects the performance of businesses If the debt ratio is higher, it has a negative effect on the performance of the businesses Similarly, Dilip Ratha's (2003) study shows that financial leverage negatively affects the performance of enterprises in developing countries On the other hand, for a long period from 2006 to 2012, the lending interest rates increased As a result, using a lot of debts is not conducive to the performances of enterprises The estimation result with ROE (return on equity) is shown in Table 4.6 Similar to the estimation result with ROA, the capital structure also has the opposite effect on ROE of construction enterprises in Vietnam In addition, variable controlling firm size also has positive impact on ROE while liquidity has adverse effect on ROE In order to investigate whether the effect of the target capital structure on the performance of the business is subject to the diminishing marginal return law, the author added to the model the square of target capital structure (CCVMT2) Estimation result is shown in Table 4.7 and Table 4.8 Similarly, the model used for analysis is a robusted FE model to control assumption violations of the model (autocorrelation and variance variance) The result for ROA shows that the target capital structure affects ROA and the effect of the target capital structure on ROA follows the diminishing marginal return rule (inverted U) Accordingly, when enterprises increase the use of debt, ROA increases However when the debt ratio exceeds the threshold of 72.7% (- (0,761) / (2 * (- 0,523)), ROA decreases as debt ratio increases The estimation result with ROE is completely similar to that with ROA Accordingly, the capital structure has impact on ROE and that effect follows the diminishing marginal rule When businesses increase the use of debt, ROE will increase but when the debt ratio exceeds the threshold of 74% (- (1,074) / (2 * (- 0,723)), ROE will decrease 4.3 Qualitative research result Enterprises being asked about the level of agreement on the views of capital structure and the target capital structure used by the dissertation all show 100% of agreement with those views Enterprises with low debt ratios are mostly those with low business perfromances These enterprises are in difficult situation with outdated fixed assets, small market share and weak competitiveness These enterprises use low debt ratio to limit the negative effects of debt balance and reduce pressure on debt payments However, when the author surveyed the low debt group, the author realizes that there are enterprises having large assets but using no debt These enterprises explained that “in order to solve the problem of capital shortage, enterprises often choose the solution of equity and are not much interested in using debt financing" Thus, it can be seen that enterprises seem to have forgotten the benefits of using financial leverage Enterprises of the low debt group also added additional reasons involving their specific business activities such as long construction projects, scattered investment capital and slow capital recovery Enterprises with high debt ratios are mostly those with high business performances, strong competitiveness and large market shares Among enterprises that use a large proportion of debt, most of them have short-term debts and their purposes of borrowing are to finance compensation, clearance and payment of land use fees and to pay to third parties for the completion of legal requirements of major projects The group of businesses that use high debt includes entirely large enterprises Enterprises all express high level of agreement with the method used by the author to build target capital structure and also affirm that the result of target capital structure found by the dissertation is relatively accurate compared to the target capital structure set by their enterprises annually However, when being asked about the role of target capital structure on business performance, these enterprises show different opinions The group of enterprises using high debt ratios shows high level of agreement (66.67%) with the statement that target capital structure has a positive influence on their business performances; whereas the group with low debt ratios has very different opinion Some argue that "when the debt ratio is high, the risk increases because if the cost of capital increases and it exceeds the profitability of the enterprise, the performance of the enterprise will fall." Some believe that the impact of target capital structure on enterprises’ performances depends much on the general economic situation of the economy During the period of recession of enterprises or the economy, revenue will decrease At that time, the higher the debt ratio is, the higher the interest payable is, resulting in lower profit and worse business performance On the contrary, during the expanding period of businesses or the economy, revenue will increase If the debt ratio is high, it means high financial leverage which leads to the increase in profits and better business performance CHAPTER SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS FOR BUILDING THE TARGET CAPITAL STRUCTURE IN ORDER TO ENHANCE THE PERFORMANCES OF CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY ENTERPRISES LISTED ON THE STOCK MARKET OF VIETNAM 5.1 Prospectives of the construction industry 5.2 Solutions to build the target capital structure and enhance business performances of construction industry enterprises listed on the stock market of Vietnam 5.2.1 Properly adjust enterprise scale 5.2.2 Enhance business operating efficiency 5.2.3 Increase equity and exploit more capital mobilization channels 5.2.4 Invest in the renovation of fixed assets 5.2.5 Innovate operating method 5.2.6 Expand the list of collaterals 5.2.7 Complete the enterprise evaluation system 5.2.8 Enhance information transparency 5.2.9 Complete forms of financial support for enterprises 5.2.10 Develop and expand loan markets 5.3 Policies and laws related to Construction industry 5.3.1 Policy to stimulate the demand of Real estate market 5.3.2 Bidding Law 2013 And Decree 63 on bidding 5.3.3 New legal framework for PPP form 5.3.5 Development plans CONCLUSION General conclusion Based on the theoretical basis of corporate capital structure, this study has analyzed the factors affecting the capital structure of listed construction industry in Vietnam from 2005 to 2015 Empirical research result shows that factors that affect capital structure include Scale (SIZE), Non-debt tax benefits (NDTS), Business profitability (PRFT) and Liquidity (LIQ) In contrast, factors that not affect the target capital structure include tangible fixed assets (TANG), Actual Tax Rates (TAX), Growth Opportunities (GROWTH), Risks (RISK), Ratio dividend payment (DIV) and specific characteristics of corporate assets (UNIQ) Besides, the dissertation studies the impact of capital structure on the performance of listed construction enterprises in Vietnam from 2005 to 2015 The result of empirical research shows that structure capital positively affects the performance of the business Researchers and managers not completely deny the important role of debt an enterprise's capital structure To a certain extent, debt enhances the company's business performance due to the effect of the tax shield (Myers, 1997; Tharmila and Arulvel, 2013) or the reduction in equity cost (Jensen and Meckling, 1976) In addition, debt also helps enterprises expand quickly to take advantage of economies of scale while still maintain the controlling of businesses due to undiluted shares (Kyereboah - Coleman, 2007) On the other hand, the effect of capital structure on the performance of listed companies in construction industry complies with the law of diminishing marginal return Specifically, when enterprises increase the use of debt, the operational efficiency of enterprises increases but when the debt ratio exceeds the threshold of 72.4%, the ROA decreases When debt ratio exceeds 74%, ROE will decrease Based on this conclusion, the dissertation suggests some solutions to improve the capital structure and enhance the performances of listet enterprises in Vietnam construction industry Limitations of the dissertation and future research direction Apart from the new contributions, the dissertation has the following limitations: (i) The thesis only concentrates on analyzing the capital structure of construction enterprises without a comparison with other enterprises in the industry (ii) The thesis only assesses the impact of internal factors on the capital structure of enterprises without assessing the influence of external factors In the future, the author will continue to eliminate the above limitations LIST OF THE AUTHOR’S PUBLISHED RESEARCHES Nguyen Thi Tuyet Lan (2017), "The impact of capital structure on business performance of construction companies listed on Vietnam stock market", Banking Science and Training Review, No 185 October 2017, page 59-66 Nguyen Thi Tuyet Lan (2017), “Study the factors affecting the target capital structure of listed construction companies on the stock market of Vietnam”, Banking Science and Training Review, No 178, March 2017, page 39-47, 56 Le Van Luyen, Nguyen Thi Tuyet Lan (2017), "Factors affecting the access to loans of construction enterprises in Vietnam", Promoting Financial Inclusion in Vietnam International Conference, page 33 – 40 Nguyen Thi Tuyet Lan, Mai Thi Nhi (2015), "Empirical evidence of the optimal capital structure threshold of listed companies on HOSE", Banking Science and Training Review, No 158 July 2015 Nguyen Thi Tuyet Lan (2018), "Vietnamese Enterprise in the Industrial Revolution 4.0", Review of Finance, 2nd period - June 2018 (683), page 57-59 Nguyen Thi Tuyet Lan (2016), "ETF - Opportunities and Challenges for Investors", Proceedings of Scientific Conference: Development of Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) in Vietnam, Falculty-level conference, Bach Khoa Publishing House, May 2016, p 154-159 Nguyen Thi Tuyet Lan (2015), "Accelerating the equitization of state-owned enterprises via good debt handling", Proceedings of scientific conferences: Financial solutions to accelerate the equitization process of state-owned enterprise in the near future, Bach Khoa Publishing House, May 2015, p 161-165 8 Nguyen Thi Tuyet Lan (2013), "Why is the restruction of State-owned Enterprises not really effective?" Proceedings of conference: Issues arised in the process of restructuring state-owned enterprises in Vietnam, Vietnam News Agency Publishing House, April 2013, page 484-486 Nguyen Thi Tuyet Lan (2011), "State Economic Group and Potential Risks", Proceedings of Conference: Financial Management at State-owned Economic Groups in Vietnam, June 2011 10 Nguyen Thanh Phuong, Nguyen Thi Tuyet Lan (2012), "Operations of Vietnamese enterprises with the fluctuation of interest rates and exchange rates", Proceedings of Conference: The impact of monetary policies on the operations of the Vietnamese enterprises in the current condition, Hong Duc Publishing House, pp 9-21 11 Nguyen Thi Tuyet Lan (2013), "Solutions for capital of small and medium-sized enterprises in Vietnam", Economy Forecast Review 12 Nguyen Thi Tuyet Lan (2013), "Causes of ineffective operations and the necessity to restructure State-owned Enterprises", Proceedings of conference: Issues arised in the process of restructuring state-owned enterprises in Vietnam, Vietnam News Agency Publishing House  ... financial management Therefore, researchs on capital structure attract much attention from scientists all over the world as well as those in Vietnam Since the publication of Modiglani & Miller (1958),... construction companies in Vietnam's stock market Research subject and scope - Research matters: Capital structure and target capital structure of construction companies listed on Vietnam stock market Specifically,... OF VIETNAM FOR THE PERIOD FROM 2005 TO 2017 3.1 Overview of the construction industry in Vietnam 3.1.1 Historical development of the construction industry 3.1.2 Characteristics of Vietnam construction