声誉激励还是经济激励——独立董事“跳槽”的实证研究

Reputation Incentive or Economic Incentive—An Empirical Study on Job-hopping Behaviors of Independent Directors

独立董事制度作为改善公司治理机制的一项重大举措引入我国上市公司。独立董事作为中小投资者的利益代言人,曾被誉为"名利双收"的阳光职业。但是,在上市公司纷纷聘请独立董事满足监管者要求的同时,我们却发现部分独立董事提出辞职,并且这种趋势愈演愈烈。更为有趣的是,很多独立董事在一家上市公司辞职后又到另外一家上市公司去任职,怎么解释这种现象呢?独立董事"跳槽"究竟是为了获得更多的经济激励,还是为了获得更多的声誉激励?本文以2001年至2005年75个独立董事的"跳槽"事件为研究对象,分析独立董事任职选择的真实动机。首先,我们回顾了已有的研究成果,并提出了一个基于经济激励和声誉激励的分析框架。经济激励包括薪酬收入和现实成本付出,声誉激励包括企业知名度、企业隶属层级和任职风险。接着,我们对独立董事"跳槽"的真实动机进行实证检验。研究结果显示,独立董事"跳槽"主要考虑的是上市公司知名度和任职风险等声誉因素,而不是薪酬收入和现实成本因素。最后,我们得出结论,片面地强调独立董事的薪酬并不能达到对独立董事的激励效果,声誉机制更能实现对独立董事的激励约束作用。独立董事制度要更好地发挥治理效果。首先要解决独立董事任职并改善公司治理的原动力问题,这就要求形成配套的独立董事绩效评估机制以及声誉激励约束机制,这样才会有培育独立董事市场、改善公司治理绩效的可能。本文的研究不仅从一个全新的角度丰富了公司治理的文献,而且对完善独立董事的激励机制提供了一定的经验证据。

Independent director system is introduced into Chinese listed companies as an important measure to promote the corporate governance. Independent directors stand for the benefits of minority investors, and they are considered to assume a sunshine profession which brings both fame and gain. However, while listed companies all rush to hire independent directors to satisfy supervisors＇ need, we find some independent directors send their resignations, and this situation is becoming more and more significant. What＇s more, many independent directors hold a post at a new listed company after they have resigned from the old listed company. How to explain this phenomenon？ What do independent directors look for, more reputation incentive or more economic incentive？ This paper analyzes the real motivation behind independent directors＇ post selection, using 75 independent directors＇ job-hopping cases from the year 2001 to 2005. Firstly, we recall the past research results, and raise an analyzing frame based on reputation incentive and economic incentive. Economic incentive includes salary earning and realistic cost payout, while reputation incentive includes the brand awareness of the enterprise, the rank the enterprise belongs to, and the risk one should take after assuming the post. Then we do an empirical study on job-hopping behaviors of independent directors. The results show that comparing to salary earning and realistic cost, independent directors take the enterprise＇s fame and the risk they will take after assuming the post as their foremost consideration. At last, we come to the conclusion that economic factors can not incentive independent directors enough, but reputation factors can do better. In order to make better use of independent director system, firstly we should solve the problem of original incentive and establish an independent directors＇ performance evaluation system and a fame incentive ＆ restriction mechanism. Only by this way can setting up independent directors market and improving companies＇ performance become possible. This paper not only enriches the literature about corporate governance, but also provides some empirical evidences for perfecting the incentive mechanism of independent directors.