中国式员工持股计划与公司违规:监督者抑或合谋者

Chinese Employee Stock Ownership Plan and Corporate Fraud:Monitor or Colluder

以我国员工持股计划重启为背景,以2011—2019年A股上市公司为样本,验证员工持股计划对公司违规的影响。结果显示,员工持股计划降低了公司违规概率与频率。机制检验发现,员工持股计划一方面通过促进中小股东投票与委派董事涉入公司内部治理,另一方面通过信息传递提升独立董事履职效率并增加分析师跟踪。进一步地,区分违规类型后发现,员工持股计划的抑制作用主要存在于信息披露违规与一般违规;区分员工持股计划方案后发现,员工持股规模高、锁定期长、高购买折价、无杠杆、无控股股东担保或兜底、无业绩条件的员工持股计划对公司违规的抑制更显著。经济后果分析发现,员工持股计划对公司违规的监督能够抑制股价崩盘风险。研究结论从公司违规角度验证了员工持股计划的监督者角色,为我国员工持股计划实施效果提供了新的经验证据。

This article uses data from A-share listed firms to examine the impact of employee stock ownership plan(ESOP)on corporate fraud.The results show that the ESOP can reduce the probability and frequency of corporate fraud.The mechanism test suggests that the ESOP improves the internal governance efficiency through promoting the voting of minority shareholders and appointing directors in the board.Meanwhile,The ESOP promotes the regulatory function of independent directors and increases the following of analysts through employees information transfer.Furthermore,distinguishing the types of corporate fraud,the ESOP mainly reduces information disclosure fraud and minor fraud.Distinguishing the types of ESOP,the plans with higher scale of employee stock ownership,longer lock-up period,higher discount,no leverage,no guarantee or reassurance and no performance conditions inhibit corporate fraud more significantly.The economic consequences analysis shows that the monitoring of corporate fraud by ESOP can reduce the stock price crash risk.The conclusion verifies the monitory role of ESOP from the perspective of corporate fraud and provides new empirical evidence for the economic consequences of ESOP.