外部市场监督与集团总部自营:机制互补还是职能替代?

External Market Supervision and Self-operation of Group Headquarters:Complementary Mechanism or Functional Substitution?

如何促进大型企业集团的发展是关乎我国经济发展质量的重要命题。以往文献探讨了企业集团内部资本市场资源配置无效的原因,却未能提出可行的解决方案,其原因在于未能考虑总部职能的多重性。文章以放松卖空管制作为外生冲击,考察了加强外部市场监督的经营环境下集团总部职能会发生何种变化,结果显示进入卖空名单后,总部发展自营单位直接从事业务的比重显著增加,且上述相关关系在非国有企业、制造业企业和地处制度环境相对较差地区的企业中表现更强;进一步研究结果显示,进入卖空名单后总部自营显著地提升了企业的资本增长并降低了企业的经营不确定性。此外,随着自营程度增加,集团总部对下属子公司的控制程度明显下降。路径研究表明,进入卖空名单显著提升了企业集团总部与子公司之间的经营互补性,且集团内代理问题也得到了一定程度的缓解。文章的研究结论揭示了解决企业内部资本市场资源配置无效的一种可能形式,即由集团总部发展总部自营单位并使其加入子公司之间的竞争,在外部监督机制的约束下,总部可以将更多的精力集中于维持内部资本市场的“挑选胜者”机制和集团内部的信息通畅,进而提升集团的长期发展能力。文章的研究成果对内部资本市场理论构成了重要补充,丰富了股票卖空的经济后果研究,同时可以为我国大型企业集团的管理实践提供有意义的借鉴。

As a form of economic organization,business groups play an important role in the process of China’s economic development.Policy documents such as the“Report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China”and the“14th Five-Year Plan(2021-2025)for National Economic and Social Development”emphasize the enhancement of the high-quality development capabilities and international competitiveness of China’s large-scale business groups,thus providing an important research background for this article.In order to achieve an orderly cycle of various production factors and commodity services of largescale business groups,and the smooth developing of the internationalization process,efficient resource allocation efficiency and reasonable internal management structure are indispensable.Using the internal capital market theory,this article systematically explores the optimization of the internal capital allocation of large-scale business groups based on the special business phenomenon of“headquarter self-operation”.Headquarter self-operation mainly refers to the business management model in which group headquarters separately establishes a branch or a group directly under the management department and directly engaging in business activities.This model transforms the original resource allocation pattern composed by headquarters and branches in the internal capital market to the resource allocation problem between headquarters,business units directly under the headquarters,and branches.Based on the exogenous economic event that companies enter the short-selling list,this article systematically examines the changes in business groups’resource allocation methods and internal management structure after the strengthening of external market supervision.The study finds that after entering the short-selling list,the self-operation proportion of business groups has increased significantly.The above phenomenon is more obvious in non-state-owned enterprises,manufacturing enterprises,and enterprises located in areas with poor institutional environments.Further research shows that as the degree of self-operation increases,the control of group headquarters over their subsidiaries decreases significantly,the complementarity between the two parties increases,and the agency problem within the group is eased to a certain extent.After entering the short-selling list,the increase of headquarter self-operation significantly promotes capital growth and reduces operational uncertainty.This shows that it is effective for business groups to develop self-operated units and incorporate them into internal resource allocation competition to maintain the overall management strategy of the“picking winners”mechanism of the internal capital market.It can be a feasible way to solve the ineffective allocation of resources in the internal capital market.The research results of this article not only constitute an important theoretical supplement to the internal capital market theory and the economic consequences of short-selling,but also provide a meaningful reference for the management practice of large-scale business groups in China.It should be noted that the premise of the role of headquarter self-operation in the optimization of internal capital market resource allocation is that the supervision mechanism of stock short-selling in the external capital market affects the interest function and action strategy of business groups.The research results also demonstrate the importance of good market supervision to the development of enterprises.In addition,the economic phenomenon of headquarter self-operation should also receive the attention of regulators,so that it can better become an internal catalyst to promote the high-quality development of business groups.