The governance role of institutional investors in management compensation: evidence from China

Song Zhu, Haijie Huang and William Bradford

Accounting and Finance, 2022, vol. 62, issue S1, 1015-1063

Abstract: This study examines whether and how institutional investors play a corporate governance role in executive pay in China. Based on a sample of Chinese listed firms from 2005 to 2015, we find that higher institutional investor ownership is negatively related to excessive management compensation; this indicates that institutional investors play a governance role in listed firms’ decisions on management payment. Institutional investors are more likely to have an influence on executive compensation through their representatives on the corporate board or by conducting site visits, especially when their ownership is high. They will also react, as in the US, by ‘voting with their feet’; that is, holding fewer shares than they would otherwise, if firms pay excessive executive compensation, especially when their ownership is low. Cross‐sectional analyses show that the negative impact of institutional ownership on excess management compensation is more evident when firms are not owned by the government, monitored by fewer analysts, and located in regions of China with weak legal investor protection. Our results indicate that institutional investors in China can play an important governance role, especially for firms with characteristics such as location and analyst coverage, for which outside monitoring mechanisms will be in high demand.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/acfi.12817

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:acctfi:v:62:y:2022:i:s1:p:1015-1063

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0810-5391

Access Statistics for this article

Accounting and Finance is currently edited by Robert Faff

More articles in Accounting and Finance from Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().