CFO兼任董秘与资本结构决策

CFO Serving Concurrently as Board Secretary and Capital Structure Decision

近年来,中国上市公司CFO兼任董秘的现象逐年增加,中国学者对这一现象的探讨主要基于董秘的视角,考察CFO兼任董秘对董秘职责履行的影响,而忽略了从CFO的角度出发,探讨CFO兼任董秘对CFO职责履行的影响。以CFO兼任董秘问题为切入点,选取2008年至2016年沪深两市A股上市公司为样本,从静态资本结构选择和动态资本结构调整两方面,探讨CFO兼任董秘对资本结构决策的影响。首先,以资产负债率测量资本结构,采用混合截面数据的OLS回归模型,考察CFO兼任董秘对资本结构选择的影响;其次,分别以资本结构调整速度和偏离程度测量资本结构调整的效率和效果,采用非平衡面板数据的固定效应模型,同时估计目标资本结构和资本结构调整速度,考察CFO兼任董秘对资本结构动态调整的影响。研究结果表明,在控制CFO兼任董事的影响后,CFO兼任董秘降低了公司的负债水平,加快了资本结构调整速度,并降低了资本结构偏离目标的程度。在控制内生性问题之后,上述结论依然稳健。进一步研究表明,CFO兼任董秘之后的两年,公司财务杠杆降低,会计稳健性提高;在CFO任期较短或CFO年龄较小的公司,CFO兼任董秘能够显著降低财务杠杆;在非国有企业中CFO兼任董秘具有明显的降杠杆效应,而在国有企业中CFO兼任董秘能够显著提升资本结构调整速度;对于股权相对分散的情况,CFO兼任董秘影响资本结构决策。上述结果表明,CFO兼任董秘通过增强CFO的股权融资偏好和风险规避意识降低财务杠杆,且CFO兼任董秘对资本结构决策的影响因公司治理环境的不同而存在差异。研究结果证实了CFO兼任董秘对资本结构决策的影响,对于扩展资本结构决策的影响因素、丰富CFO兼任董秘的经济后果研究具有重要的理论意义。在实践意义上,研究结果支持CFO兼任董秘有助于提升其财务管理能力的观点,为上市公司中越来越多CFO兼任董秘的现象提供了新的解释和依据。

In recent years,the phenomenon of CFO serving concurrently as board secretary in listed companies has been increasing year by year.Domestic scholars’discussion of this phenomenon is mainly based on the perspective of board secretary,which examines the impact of CFO serving concurrently as board secretary on the performance of board secretary functions,but ignores its impact on the performance of CFO functions from the perspective of the CFO.In view of this,taking the issue of CFO serving concurrently as board secretary as the starting point and selecting Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies spanning from2008 to 2016 as the sample data,this paper explores the impact of CFO serving concurrently as board secretary on the capital structure decision from the two aspects of static capital structure selection and dynamic capital structure adjustment.Firstly,measuring capital structure by the asset-liability ratio,this research employs the OLS regression model based on mixed cross-sectional data to investigate the influence of CFO serving concurrently as board secretary on the capital structure selection.Secondly,measuring the efficiency and the effect of capital structure adjustment by the speed and the deviation of capital structure adjustment respectively,and estimating the target capital structure and the capital structure adjustment speed concurrently,this study adopts the fixed effect model based on non-equilibrium panel data to examine the impact of CFO serving concurrently as board secretary on the capital structure dynamic adjustment.The research results show that after controlling the influence of CFO serving concurrently as director,CFO serving concurrently as board secretary reduces the debt level of the company,speeds up the adjustment of capital structure,and reduces the degree of deviation of capital structure from the target.After controlling the problem of endogeneity,the above conclusions are still robust.Further research shows that in the two years after CFO serving concurrently as board secretary,the company’s financial leverage is reduced and the accounting conservatism is improved.In companies with CFOs having shorter tenure or lower age,CFO serving concurrently as board secretary significantly reduces the firms’financial leverage.In non-state-owned enterprises,CFO serving concurrently as board secretary has obvious deleveraged effect,while in state-owned enterprises,CFO serving concurrently as board secretary can significantly improve the speed of capital structure adjustment.In the case of relatively dispersed equity,CFO serving concurrently as board secretary can influence the capital structure decision.The above results indicates that CFO serving concurrently as board secretary can reduce financial leverage by enhancing CFO’s equity financing preference and risk aversion awareness,and the influence of CFO serving concurrently as board secretary on capital structure decision varies with different corporate governance environments.The research results confirm the influence of CFO serving concurrently as board secretary on the capital structure decision,which is of great theoretical significance for the study of expanding the influencing factors of capital structure decision and enriching the economic consequences of CFO serving concurrently as board secretary.In a practical sense,the research conclusions support the view that CFO serving concurrently as board secretary can help CFO improve their financial management ability,which provides a new explanation and basis for the phenomenon of more and more CFO serving concurrently as board secretary in listed companies.