The Impact of Shareholder Activism on Corporate Performance——Evidence from China

摘要

The separation of ownership and management of companies results in agency problems between shareholders and management to some extent.In Western countries,shareholders usually actively participate in the company’s management and monitor management issues in order to enhance the company’s performance.At present,China’s securities market,as well as institutional investors are undergoing a rapid development,while problems of governance among listed companies in China have been negatively affecting the development of capital markets.Institutional investors have developed to form a certain scale.Moreover,national policies,as well as the split-share structure reform,further encourage the growth of institutional investors,and their active participation in corporate governance in order to better promote the development of capital markets.A great deal of research pertains to the effects of shareholder activism on corporate performance in Western countries.However,research on shareholder activism in China is scanty.Furthermore,chances are that in some specific Chinese regions and industries circumstances are unique,in which the well-established theories cannot be effectively applied.Therefore,this paper empirically analyzes the correlation between shareholder activism and corporate performance so as to examine how effective China’s institutional investors participate in the governance of listed companies.This paper empirically tests the impact of shareholder activism on corporate performance.In this paper,an unbalanced panel data set consisting of observation is constructed.Then,in order to insure validity of results,a series of preliminary tests are conducted.Furthermore,Panel data method and robustness check are performed for empirical analysis.Finally,the result of the empirical tests shows that there is a positive correlation between Chinese institutional shareholding ratio and corporate performance of listed companies.This indicates that shareholder activism can definitely promote the corporate governance and corporate performance in China.