ABSTRACT: This research examines the impact of the ratio of foreigners in the executive board on the business performance of 154 companies, including companies with Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Vietnam and companies on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HOSE), with data collected in two years, 2015 and 2016. From this viewpoint, investors will build a better view in the training and distributing human resources in their executive board for investment projects in developing countries in Southeast Asia, especially Vietnam. In addition, on a macro level, we desire this research to become the basis for a deeper systematic research in evaluation of business performance of foreign investment in Vietnam in the future. This research is an achievement of application of the resource dependence theory and agency theory to the specific context in firms in Southern Vietnam. This research uses the ROA, ROE, ROCE, and PAT variables to measure business performance and method of running a linear regression model to measure the impact of foreign executive board on business performance. A result of the research shows that the ratio of foreigners in the board of directors has a reserve relationship with the firm performance in the Southern Vietnam. This result supports the resource dependence theory when it is said that there is a link between the diversity in executive board and business performance, but does not support the agency theory for the direction of the interaction between two objects.

Keywords: executive board, firm performance, foreign administrators, Vietnam
JEL classification: L25