| The report to the 19 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China jointly pointed out that we should deepen the reform of state-owned enterprises(SOEs),develop a mixed-ownership economy,accelerate the layout optimization and structural adjustment of the state-owned economy,and promote soes to improve their level of innovation and global competitiveness.The reform of state-owned enterprises has entered a critical stage--not only to reform their own mechanisms,but also to develop global competitiveness.According to the report of the 20 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China(CPC),the overall goal of China’s development by 2035 is to become self-reliant in science and technology at a high level,and to be in the forefront of innovative countries.As an important component of Chinese socialist market economy,state-owned enterprises are also important subjects of innovation.The improvement of their independent innovation ability relates to the completion of the development objectives of the whole country.How to effectively utilize the state-owned capital and improve the competitiveness of state-owned enterprises is the fundamental direction to develop mixed ownership economy.The two core contents of mixed-ownership reform(hereinafter referred to as "mixed-ownership reform")are "mixed capital" and "reform mechanism".However,at the present stage,the mixed reform of most state-owned enterprises is still superficial.It is difficult for non-state-owned shareholders to play an effective right of control and discourse in corporate governance only by introducing non-state-owned capital in the level of ownership structure,and it is difficult to effectively supervise and restrict the deep-level internal governance of enterprises,thus affecting the resource allocation of state-owned enterprises and the improvement of production efficiency.Therefore,the over-appointing directors by non-state-owned shareholders is a kind of non-equal allocation of control rights and equity rights,which breaks the logic that control rights are only determined by equity rights,and provides a solution to the above dilemma.On the one hand,this corporate governance structure enables non-state-owned shareholders to exert strong restraint and supervision over senior executives and major shareholders of state-owned enterprises,alleviates the two kinds of agency problems,and avoids the crowding out effect of the loss of state capital on innovation and research and development investment.On the other hand,since the proportion of non-state-owned shareholders’ shares is still low,the degree of fit with the interests of managers of state-owned enterprises is low,and the supervision of non-state-owned shareholders on managers of state-owned enterprises is easy to produce a "free rider" mentality,which aggravates the agency problem,reduces the operating efficiency of state-owned enterprises,and hinders the innovation and research investment of state-owned enterprises.Then,can the over-appointment of directors by non-state-owned shareholders effectively alleviate the two kinds of agency problems and improve the innovation level of state-owned enterprises,or will it exert negative governance effects and hinder the improvement of the innovation level of state-owned enterprises due to the low interest fit bias and regulatory externalities? At present,there are few literatures that focus on the influence of non-state-owned shareholders’ over-appointment of directors on the governance level of state-owned enterprises from the perspective of unequal equity and control right under the mixed ownership reform,and most of them put the indicators to measure the governance level of state-owned enterprises in the internal economic characteristic indicators such as accounting information quality and enterprise factor productivity.In this thesis,the innovation level of non-economic indicators of state-owned enterprises is adopted to avoid the problem of "beautiful women marry first".Therefore,to explore the governance effect of over-delegation of non-state-owned shareholders and its influence on the innovation level of state-owned enterprises becomes the starting point of this thesis.Therefore,this thesis takes A-share state-owned listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2009 to 2020 as the initial research sample,collects data of over-appointment of directors by non-state-owned shareholders by hand,analyzes the relationship between the0ver-appointment of directors by non-state-owned shareholders and the innovation level of state-owned enterprises based on the principal-agent theory,resource dependence theory,property rights reform theory and policy burden theory,and proposes A set of opposing hypotheses.Then,descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation coefficient analysis are carried out for each variable in this thesis,which provides preliminary and strong evidence that non-state-owned shareholders’ over-appointment of directors has a significant effect on the improvement of the innovation level of state-owned enterprises.The basic regression results once again verify that in the mixed reform of state-owned enterprises,the excessive appointment of directors by non-state-owned shareholders has a significant positive correlation with the innovation level of state-owned enterprises.In order to overcome the endogeneity problem caused by sample self-selection and sample bias,this thesis introduced two exogenous variables,the number of coastal ports in each province and whether it was concession before the founding of New China.Heckman two-stage method and instrumental variable method were used for endogeneity test,and PSM propensity score matching method and reverse causality test were used to strengthen the test results.Finally,a series of robustness tests,such as Tobit model test,replacement of explanatory variables and elimination of interference from non-state-owned shareholders’ shareholding ratio,are carried out in this thesis.This thesis further makes an economic analysis of control rights and finds that the internal mechanism lies in effectively alleviating two kinds of agency problems.In the case of over-appointment of directors,the active participation of non-state-owned shareholders in corporate decision-making can effectively alleviate the entrenchment effect of controlling shareholders using their own control rights over equity for profit,curb the opportunistic behaviors of state-owned shareholders such as rent-seeking and personal gain,and enable state-owned enterprises to devote more resources to innovation and research and development.In addition,this thesis also noted the agent behavior of managers,and found that non-state-owned shareholders over-delegate directors to actively participate in corporate decision-making may also form effective supervision of managers,reduce their opportunistic behavior,and stimulate enterprises to engage in long-term innovation activities.The results of heterogeneity analysis show that it is more obvious in local state-owned enterprises,regions with high legal system development level and competitive state-owned enterprises.It shows that perfect legal system is an important guarantee to maintain non-public capital,and the nature of the industry and the willingness of the government to delegate power will affect the governance effect of non-state-owned shareholders’ over-appointment of directors.At the theoretical level,this thesis breaks through the traditional perspective of "quantity" such as ownership ratio and ownership concentration,and examines the difference between control rights and ownership rights of non-state-owned shareholders from the perspective of "quality" such as material control rights,namely their controlling position,namely the allocation logic of unequal ownership rights and control rights.The research results provide empirical test and theoretical basis for the subsequent research on the governance effect of non-state-owned shareholders’ breakthrough of equity and over-allocation of directors on state-owned enterprises.At the practical level,this thesis helps to provide empirical evidence from the governance of non-state-owned shareholders for state-owned enterprises to alleviate the two types of agency problems,the factors influencing the innovation level of state-owned enterprises and the action path,and has important reference significance for state-owned enterprises to improve the governance level and innovation competitiveness.The research content of this thesis has certain practical significance for further promoting mixed ownership reform,giving full play to the governance role of non-state-owned shareholders at the level of board of directors of state-owned enterprises,and guiding listed state-owned enterprises to carry out innovative activities. |
