机构投资者抱团能抑制控股股东私利行为吗--基于社会网络视角的分析

Can Institutional Investors’Clique Restrain the Self-interested Behavior of Controlling Shareholders:Analysis From Social Network

高度集聚的投资者网络可以缓解“搭便车”问题,以推动投资者集体行动的实现。本文以共同持股的产权关联为依据构建机构投资者网络,利用社会网络算法,从机构投资者网络中识别出高度集聚的机构投资者团体,实证检验了机构投资者抱团持股对控股股东私利行为的影响。研究发现:抱团持股能够帮助机构投资者有效抑制控股股东私利行为,抑制效应大小与抱团持股比例正相关。基于公司外部治理环境和内部股权结构的影响分析表明,在审计质量较低、外部约束较弱的情形下,机构投资者抱团对控股股东私利行为的抑制效应更为显著;在两权分离的股权结构中,机构投资者抱团对控股股东私利行为的抑制效应更强,揭示了影响机构投资者抱团边际治理效应的因素。影响机制的分析进一步表明,机构投资者抱团可以通过退出威胁和“用手投票”来抑制控股股东私利行为,然而在我国资本市场中,退出威胁的治理效应显著强于“用手投票”。

Since controlling shareholders’ tunneling was proposed, it has become one of the core issues in the field of corporate governance. Many studies have shown that due to the advantages in capital scale, information collection and analysis, institutional investors’ shareholding can reduce related-party transactions and alleviate the interest infringement and manipulation of controlling shareholders. However, these traditional studies regard the overall shareholding ratio as the proxy variable of institutional investors’ shareholding, which means the realization of governance effectiveness must be based on the assumption that all institutional investors take concerted action. So these studies all imply the achievement of collective action. However, in highly concentrated ownership of Chinese capital market, institutional investors also have free riding problem because their shareholding is low and scattered. Therefore,the key issue to realize the governance effectiveness of institutional investors is how to promote the achievement of collective action.The traditional studies on cooperation mechanism show the importance of consanguinity, reputation, reciprocity and other factors in collective action. With the rise and wide application of the complex network theory in recent years, more and more scholars begin to use the complex network to describe the human interaction and explain the emergence of cooperative behavior. These studies show that highly aggregated networks are more likely to promote the emergence and maintenance of cooperative behavior. The greater the network density, the closer the interaction between network members, and the easier it is for members to form a clique.Based on existing studies, this paper focuses on the generation mechanism of cooperative behavior in the institutional investor network,analyzes how the collective action of institutional investors is formed, reveals what kind of institutional investors more likely to clique, and investigates the influence of institutional investors’ clique on the self-interested behavior of controlling shareholders. Specifically,using the data of Chinese A-share listed firms during 2004–2018, this paper builds the institutional investor network with joint ownership link, uses the social network algorithm to identify highly clustered groups from the institutional investor network,and examines whether institutional investors’ clique can inhibit and how to inhibit the self-interested behavior of controlling shareholders.The results show that institutional investors’ clique can effectively inhibit the controlling shareholders’ self-interested behavior, the larger the proportion of the clique shareholding, the stronger the inhibition effect. According to the analysis of the impact of external audit environment and internal equity structure, it is found that in the case of lower audit quality and weak external constraints,the inhibition effect of institutional investors’ clique is significant;in the equity structure with separation of ownership and control,the inhibition effect of institutional investors’ clique is strong. The results reveal the factors which influence marginal governance effectiveness of institutional investors’ clique. Institutional investors’ clique can restrain the self-interested behavior of controlling shareholders by blind voting and wise voting. However, our research shows that despite investors’ clique, the shareholding proportion of institutional investors is still very low in Chinese capital market. The average proportion during 2004–2018 is less than 5%, which means that even if the motivation and ability of Chinese institutional investors’ clique to participate in corporate governance with their voice is still insufficient. Our empirical analysis also shows that the exit threat of blind voting is still the main way for institutional investors’ clique to play the role of corporate governance. This result is significantly different from the research on institutional investors’ clique in American capital market, which shows that the highly concentrated ownership in Chinese capital market significantly affects the path and effect of institutional investors participating in corporate governance.