摘要
本文利用2007—2018年中国上市公司数据,实证考察了董事长和总经理二者同乡关系所形成的社会连接对我国上市公司内部人控制的影响。研究表明,董事长和总经理二者之间的同乡关系将使包括董事长和总经理在内的高管薪酬显著增加,但显著增加的薪酬并没有与绩效挂钩,因而增长的薪酬在一定意义上演化为损害外部股东利益的"超额薪酬",成为外部分散股东不得不承担的特殊代理成本。与此同时,上述社会连接的存在显著降低了董事长及总经理的更迭概率,使董事长主导下的内部人控制格局趋于稳定。因而,原本用来加强信任的社会连接蜕化为上市公司加强内部人控制的工具。而上述基于社会连接所形成的以董事长为中心的"内部人控制"与欧美分散股权结构下以经理人为核心的"内部人控制"不同,本文称之为"中国式"内部人控制。本文由此以董事长和总经理二者之间的同乡关系为例,从社会连接的视角揭示我国一些上市公司存在"中国式"内部人控制的社会原因,同时为我国上市公司存在任人唯亲的董事会文化提供了新的证据。
Traditionally,there are two reasons for the formation of insider control in western countries.First,the company’s ownership is highly dispersed,so it is difficult for a single shareholder to supervise the CEO.Second,in order to motivate managers to work hard,shareholders often provide equity incentives to managers,as a result,the managers hold so much equity that it becomes impossible to be shaken by dispersed shareholders,which is called the entrenchment effect.However,the ownership structure of China is"the first shareholder dominates"and the managers hold few shares.So political,historical,cultural,and social factors are considered to be the important factors leading to insider control in China.What’s more,the core of insider control in China is the chairman and the CEOs often play the role of administrative assistant of the chairman.Therefore,we define it as"Chinese style"insider control.This paper takes the hometown connection between the chairman and the CEO as an example to reveal the social reasons for the existence of the"Chinese style"insider control and provides new evidence for the existence of the cronyism culture of the board of directors in China’s listed companies.Using the data of China’s listed companies from 2007 to 2018,this paper empirically examines the economic consequence of the social ties formed by the"hometown connection"between the chairman and the CEO.The study shows that the social ties between the chairman and the CEO will significantly increase the compensation of directors,which always includes the chairman and the CEO.However,the significantly increased compensation is not linked with performance.Therefore,the increased director’s compensation will turn into"excess compensation"which damages the interests of dispersed shareholders and leads to agency costs.At the same time,the existence of social ties significantly reduces the turnover probability of the chairman and the CEO and makes insider control stable.Therefore,social ties,which were originally used to strengthen trust,have degenerated into a tool to strengthen insider control.The contribution of this paper is twofold:first,this paper reveals the social factor contributes a lot to the"Chinese style"insider control.Using the social ties between the chairman and the CEO,this paper provides early and direct empirical evidence for the existence of insider control problems in China’s capital market.Secondly,previous literature shows that social ties play an active role in enhancing trust and slowing down information asymmetry.This paper shows that the social ties in China’s listed companies have evolved into a tool to strengthen the control of insiders.This paper puts forward three suggestions.First,in order to regulate corporate governance behavior and curb the spread of"cronyism",listed companies should limit the scope of manager and director selection.Specifically,in the selection of managers and directions,in addition to considering the relationship between candidates and shareholders,we should also consider whether there are social ties among the candidates and the current chairmen(CEOs or directors).The forms of social ties include fellow townsmen,classmates,colleagues,club members,etc.Second,listed companies should create a culture that tolerates criticism.Regulators and companies should encourage directors to say"no"bravely and openly.In this way,directors can actively perform their supervisory functions by issuing negative opinions and make an automatic error correction mechanism to avoid major business decision-making mistakes.Further,the directors’public saying"no"can also arouse the attention of the regulatory authorities,which will help protect the interests of shareholders,especially small shareholders.Third,listed companies should actively employ reputable audit firms to alleviate the information asymmetry between shareholders and managers.What’s more,reputable audit firms can also eliminate the tendency of establishing insider control through the introduction of external supervision.In addition,it is worth noting that theoretical analysis shows that social ties have both positive and negative effects.This paper focuses on its negative effects.In the future,we can continue to study the positive effects of social ties in some special situations.
作者
郑志刚
刘小娟
张浩
侯文轩
ZHENG Zhi-gang;LIU Xiao-juan;ZHANG Hao;HOU Wen-xuan(School of Finance,Renmin University of China,Beijing,100872,China;China Financial Policy Research Center,Renmin University of China,Beijing,100872,China;University of Edinburgh Business School,Edinburgh,EH89JS,UK;School of Finance,Shanghai Lixin University of Accounting and Finance,Shanghai,201209,China)
出处
《经济管理》
CSSCI
北大核心
2021年第3期98-112,共15页
Business and Management Journal ( BMJ )
基金
国家自然科学基金面上项目“任人唯亲的董事会文化与独立董事更迭的‘逆淘汰’”(71472177)
关键词
社会连接
内部人控制
同乡关系
薪酬
离职
social ties
insider control
hometown connections
compensation
turnover
作者简介
郑志刚,男,教授,经济学博士,研究领域是公司治理,电子邮箱:zhengzhigang@ruc.edu.cn;通讯作者:刘小娟,女,博士研究生,研究领域是公司治理,电子邮箱:joyce_liuxj@ruc.edu.cn;张浩,男,博士研究生,研究领域是公司治理,电子邮箱:zhanghao_sf@ruc.edu.cn;侯文轩,男,教授,经济学博士,研究领域是公司金融,电子邮箱:wenxuan.hou@ed.ac.uk。
