Does digitalization mitigate or intensify the principal-agent conflict in a firm?

Ilya Ivaninskiy (), Irina Ivashkovskaya and Joseph A. McCahery ()
Additional contact information
Ilya Ivaninskiy: HSE University
Joseph A. McCahery: Tilburg University

Journal of Management & Governance, 2023, vol. 27, issue 3, No 2, 695-725

Abstract: Abstract In this article, we analyse the impact of business digitalisation on the principal-agent conflict. While there are several studies of impact of digitalization on corporate governance, the empirical evidence has so far been relatively scarce. We examine the principal-agent conflict from several angles: the number of shareholder-sponsored proposals submitted for the shareholder meetingsб the level of support for management-sponsored proposals and the frequency of proxy contests. As a proxy for the active digitalisation of a firm, we use the blockchain technology that has the potential to fundamentally change the distribution of power within an organisation, potentially mitigating the principal-agent conflict. We analyze a sample of 2813 NYSE, Nasdaq and AMEX-traded firms for the year 2018, during which rapid blockchain adoption was exhibited. Our results suggest that firms active in business digitalisation overall have a lower level of principal-agent conflict. We find that such firms generally have shareholders that are more active, which indicates an environment less prone to the principal-agent conflict. While on average, proposals submitted by the management receive less support during voting, the share of approved proposals does not change for the digitising firms. Proxy contests appear relatively rare among the firms active in digitalisation, however, there is not yet enough data to confirm this.

Keywords: Corporate governance; Blockchain; Digital transformation; Corporate voting; Proxy contest; Shareholder activism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G32 G34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10997-021-09584-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:kap:jmgtgv:v:27:y:2023:i:3:d:10.1007_s10997-021-09584-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... 29/journal/10997/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10997-021-09584-8

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Management & Governance is currently edited by Lino Cinquini

More articles in Journal of Management & Governance from Springer, Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().