Date of Award

2-13-2026

Thesis Type

PhD

Document Type

Thesis

Divisions

Institute for Advanced Studies

Institution

Universiti Malaya

Abstract

In the era of the digital economy, businesses strive to create sustainable competitive advantages to survive and grow in an increasingly competitive environment. As potential sources of competitive advantage, this thesis examined the impact of foreign shareholdings and intellectual capital (IC) (proxied by VAIC and its components) on the performance of 485 firms listed on Bursa Malaysia from 2013 to 2019. The moderating role of domestic firms’ IC on the relationship between foreign shareholdings and firm performance was also assessed. Firstly, the results suggested that foreign shareholdings had a significant positive impact on accounting-based performance but had insignificant effects on market-based performance. Foreign shareholdings of 33% or more were the main contributors to this positive effect. The findings further indicated no significant relationship between foreign shareholdings from China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan, and firm performance, excluding those from the Netherlands and the U.S. Secondly, this study revealed that VAIC and its components, namely Human Capital Efficiency (HCE), Structural Capital Efficiency (SCE) and Capital Employed Efficiency (CEE) had a positive significant impact on firm performance. Nevertheless, the effect of HCE was less robust, as it was only significant for Return on Asset (ROA). This raised concerns regarding the effectiveness of human capital investment and suggested the need to review existing development mechanisms. Furthermore, VAIC and all three components significantly moderated the relationship between overall foreign shareholdings and firm performance. Specifically, VAIC, HCE, and CEE significantly or marginally moderated this relationship when foreign shareholdings were below 20%. Similarly, VAIC, HCE, and SCE either significantly or marginally moderated this relationship when foreign shareholdings are equal to or more than 33%. Moreover, domestic firms’ IC (VAIC) moderated this relationship when foreign investors were from China and Hong Kong, the Netherlands and U.S., but not from Japan and Singapore. The moderating effects of each individual IC components also varied by investors’ country of origin. HCE showed a significant moderating effect for investors from the Netherlands, the U.S., and Singapore, while SCE was significant for those from China, Hong Kong, and Singapore. CEE exhibited either significant or marginal moderating effects for investors from the Netherlands, the U.S., and Japan. These findings underscored the importance of an appropriate shareholding structure and the critical role of IC development in facilitating transnational knowledge spillovers. The variations in how specific IC components moderated the relationship between foreign shareholdings (from different origins) and firm performance further emphasized the need to develop IC that aligned with the demands and operational strategies of targeted investors. This could better facilitate the transmission of knowledge and effectively transform it into firm value.

Initial

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Additional Information

Thesis (PhD) – Institute for Advanced Studies, Universiti Malaya, 2026.

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