经理人离职原因模糊披露的影响因素及其经济后果——来自中国上市公司的证据

Reasons and Economy Results of Ambiguous Disclosure about CEO Turnover:Evidence from China's Listed Companies

本文以1999-2012年间上市公司中离职的经理人为样本来考察所披露的离职原因的信息含量和可靠度。我们发现,经营能力较差的经理人和职业经理人在离职时更倾向披露模糊的离职原因以维护其声誉;而在民营企业中,这种关系被显著加强。在进一步研究中,我们考察了披露模糊离职原因的经理人的收益和下一任期的经营状况。结果显示,模糊离职的经理人在下一期更容易被其他上市公司所聘用,但下一任期所任职公司的会计业绩也更差。最后,我们检验了市场是否能识别这种信息隐藏行为,通过事件研究法我们发现市场并不能识别经理人模糊离职的动机。本文的结论丰富了关于高管变更中披露行为的相关研究,为进一步建设我国经理人市场提供了理论参考。

In this paper, we exploit the sample of CEO turnover to examine the informativeness and credibility of the reasons cited by CEOs for CEO turnover between 1999 and 2012 in China. We find that the possibility of ambiguous disclosure is negatively related to CEOs＇ capacity and professional manager identity. Such relationship is even stronger in private firms. Next we test benefits of ambiguous disclosure. We find CEOs who disclose ambiguous reasons are more likely to obtain jobs next year in other listed firms. However, future accounting performance of these firms is significantly weaker. Finally, we carry an event study to examine whether equity market could react to the misrepresentation; the result suggests that investors could not understand and respond to such event. Our results enrich the literature about CEO change and subsequent disclosure behavior and provide a reference for future construction of professional manager market system.