中小股东“用嘴投票”的治理效应与企业投资效率

The Impact of Minority Shareholders’Voice in Social Media on Investment Efficiency

互联网新媒体为中小股东群体发挥治理功能和丰富我国“市场型治理模式”创造了条件。本文从企业投资效率视角出发,检验了中小股东利用社交媒体“用嘴投票”的治理效应。研究结果表明,中小股东利用社交媒体发声有效改善了企业投资效率。机制检验显示,公司内部治理的有效性以及高管非过度自信是中小股东发声改善投资效率的重要机制。异质性分析表明,在法律环境良好以及存在卖空压力的公司中,中小股东发声对企业投资效率的改善效果更明显。进一步分析发现,中小股东发声主要抑制了企业的过度投资行为,高频率评论的网络发声对企业投资效率的改善作用更明显,政府部门的互联网整治措施能够有效提升中小股东发声对投资效率的影响。上述结果意味着互联网新媒体的出现有利于汇集众多中小股东的力量,给予公司高管巨大的舆论压力,进而优化企业投资效率。本文结论不仅对于数字经济时代创新公司治理实践具有重要作用,也对于中小投资者维护自身权益具有重要的启示意义。

As the main carrier of the market economy,the investment efficiency of enterprises is not only related to their own development prospects,but also a decisive factor to realize the“steady growth”of China’s economy.However,a large number of studies have shown that the agency problem between shareholders and managers becomes an important factor hindering efficient investment of enterprises.Existing studies show that equity governance is an important way to alleviate agency problems and improves the efficiency of resource allocation.In the equity structure of listed firms,minority shareholders are a huge group which is easy to be ignored in the practice of corporate governance.Due to the highly dispersed equity,it is difficult for minority shareholders to restrict listed companies by“voting with hands”or“voting with feet”.With the gradual development of Internet technology,the rise of new information media such as social media provides a basis for minority investors to gather strength.The exchange of opinions on social media helps minority shareholders form an alliance of interests to gain more voice,which will have a profound impact on the capital market.Can minority shareholders alleviate the agency problem with corporate executives by using the supervision method of“voting with mouth”on social media,so as to improve investment efficiency?This becomes a research question that needs to be examined.This paper examines whether minority shareholders’voice through social media can help improve the efficiency of corporate investment.It finds that the minority shareholders’voice can effectively improve the investment efficiency of enterprises.The mechanism tests show that the effectiveness of the company’s internal governance and the non-overconfidence of executives are important mechanisms for minority shareholders to speak out to improve investment efficiency.Heterogeneity analysis shows that the above effect is more obvious in firms with good legal environment and short selling pressure.In further analysis,first of all,this paper divides inefficient investment into over-investment and under-investment,and finds that the voice of minority shareholders mainly inhibits the over-investment behavior of enterprises.Secondly,this paper finds that the minority shareholder’s voice with high-frequency comments can improve the investment efficiency more significantly.Finally,this paper finds that the Internet governance action of government is the basis for minority shareholders governance.The above empirical results mean that the emergence of social media platforms is conducive to gathering the strength of numerous minority shareholders,giving huge public pressure to company executives,and thus optimizing the investment efficiency of enterprises.The contributions of this paper include the following three points:First,the literature on the economic consequences of minority shareholders’voice is expanded.Most of the existing literature analyzes the governance effect of minority shareholders’voice on social media from the aspects of information disclosure and executive compensation.Few literatures study the operation and investment decision of enterprises.This paper provides empirical evidences from the perspective of investment efficiency,which further expands the relevant literature on the minority shareholders activism.Secondly,it provides causal identification method for social media related research.Different from the previous literature,this paper uses the“GUBA APP”as the research context in the robustness test,which ensures the causality of the conclusions of this paper.This has a strong inspiring effect for subsequent research.Finally,this paper enriches related work on factors affecting investment efficiency.In the current era of highly developed Internet,social media is gradually becoming the main carrier of public opinion for minority shareholders.Therefore,exploring the relationship between it and investment efficiency has become an important research topic,and this study is helpful to supplement the relevant literature on factors affecting investment efficiency.