Research On The Influence Of Online Voting By Minority Shareholders On Enterprise Innovation

Minority shareholders as investors in enterprises,because of the low proportion of shareholding,only a small number of voting rights and voice.Compared with the controlling shareholders and the management,the minority shareholders have higher cost to obtain the information of the enterprise and are in the inferior position of information,therefore,there will be a double principal-agent problem.In order to protect the interests of minority shareholders,the Securities Regulatory Commission issued the relevant policies of online voting,popularizing the online voting system,which has become one of the most important ways to hold shareholder meetings,to protect the interests of minority shareholders to make an important contribution.The agency problem can reduce the level of enterprise innovation.On the one hand,in order to pursue on-the-job consumption,management will disguise the operating conditions in order to maximize profits,empty the funds needed for innovation activities,reduce capital and R&D expenditure;on the other hand,large shareholders’ pursuit of their own interests leads to“Tunnel effect”,unwilling to carry out risky and long-term R&D activities,not conducive to enterprise innovation.Therefore,strictly monitoring the behavior of controlling shareholders and management is the way to improve the level of enterprise innovation.Previous studies have proved that the participation of small and medium-sized shareholders in online voting can form beneficial supervision,reduce agency costs,and prompt management and controlling shareholders to make more prudent and reasonable decisions.At present,there are few literatures about whether the online voting of minority shareholders will affect the level of enterprise innovation.Based on the sample of Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from2014 to 2020,this paper discusses the impact of minority shareholders’ participation in online voting on enterprise innovation.First,we collect relevant data and design a reasonable empirical model to test the impact of minority shareholders network voting on enterprise innovation Finally,the paper examines the impact of small and medium-sized shareholders network voting on enterprise innovation channels and heterogeneity of the impact.The results show that: Firstly,minority shareholders can play a supervisory role in online voting,and can improve enterprise innovation.After a series of robustness tests,the results are still robust.Secondly,the mechanism of minority shareholders to participate in the online voting can reduce the two types of agency costs,and then improve the level of enterprise innovation.Thirdly,the conclusions of heterogeneity show that,comparing with other enterprises,in the private enterprises,the external audit supervision is weak and the growth of enterprises is low,small and medium-sized shareholders’ participation in online voting has a more significant positive impact on enterprise innovation.The conclusion of this paper is of great significance for improving the mode of corporate governance and the innovation ability of enterprises.