中國機構投資者調研的價值效應研究

Abstract

This paper takes the Chinese capital market as the background to explore the value effect of institutional investors' field research, a unique corporate governance mechanism, on listed companies. Under China's special institutional environment, field research has become an important way for institutional investors to participate in the governance of listed companies. The highly concentrated equity structure, the investor protection system that needs to be improved, and the investor structure dominated by individual investors make it difficult for institutional investors to have a substantial impact on corporate decision-making through formal corporate governance channels (such as shareholder meeting voting, proposal rights, etc.). In contrast, field research is conducted in the form of informal meetings and telephone conferences, becoming the main channel for institutional investors to understand the company's situation and express their demands. In 2022, the number of institutional investor research visits received by A-share listed companies exceeded 100,000 times, and each listed company received nearly 30 visits per year on average, reflecting the universality and importance of field research.Field research conveys market information and investor demands to management, which may promote companies to improve operating efficiency and governance, but it may also cause management to focus too much on short-term performance. The information obtained from field research is transmitted to the market through transactions, which may improve pricing efficiency, but may also aggravate information asymmetry. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct in-depth research on the mechanism of field research and understand its effectiveness and limitations under China's special institutional environment. This will not only help enrich corporate governance theory, but also have important practical significance for improving capital market institutions and improving corporate governance levels.

This paper focuses on the following main contents:
First, sorting out the institutional background and practical characteristics of field research by institutional investors in China's capital market. This paper systematically reviews the institutional changes in the development of China's capital market, analyzes the characteristics of highly concentrated equity structure, imperfections of investor protection system, and investor structure dominated by individual investors in the current market environment, and explains how these factors affect the way and effect of institutional investors' participation in corporate governance. On this basis, through empirical data analysis of the overall trend, frequency distribution, industry distribution and other characteristics of institutional investors' field research activities in recent years, it is revealed that field research has become an important and unique way for institutional investors to participate in corporate governance.

Second, in-depth discussion of the information search function and effectiveness of institutional investors' field research. An important purpose of field research is to help institutional investors obtain incremental information that is difficult to obtain through public channels and form information advantages. This paper intends to clarify the internal mechanism of this process through theoretical analysis, and to construct indicators reflecting the information content of institutional investors' research in empirical research, to test whether institutional investors can form effective information advantages through field research, and how this information advantage affects their trading behavior and corporate governance behavior. At the same time, it also analyzes the potential costs and risks of obtaining information through field research, such as insider trading and selective disclosure that may be induced.

Third, analyze the impact of field research on the quality of corporate information disclosure and its transmission mechanism. As an important information communication channel, field research may affect the information disclosure decisions of corporate management. On the one hand, close supervision by institutional investors may prompt management to improve the level of voluntary information disclosure and disclose company information in a timely, accurate and complete manner. On the other hand, management may also use field research for selective disclosure, mislead the market, or even engage in insider trading.

Fourth, evaluate the impact of field research on corporate operating decisions and corporate value. This study also analyzes its impact on the information efficiency and resource allocation function of the capital market. Specifically, it is intended to test how the incremental information obtained by institutional investors through field research is transmitted to the market, affecting the asset price discovery process and pricing efficiency; how the research and trading behavior of institutional investors affects the stability and liquidity of the market; how the corporate governance improvement effect guided by field research affects the improvement of resource allocation efficiency within the industry, etc. By analyzing the spillover effects of field research at the market level, the value and impact of this corporate governance mechanism can be evaluated more comprehensively.

Through systematic theoretical analysis and empirical testing, this paper aims to clarify the mechanism and value effect of the special governance mechanism of institutional investors' field research in the Chinese context, enrich the theory of corporate governance and institutional investor research, and provide a basis for improving the capital market system, standardizing field research behavior, and promoting institutional investors to play a positive role.

Date of Award	10 Oct 2024
Original language	Chinese (Traditional)
Awarding Institution	City University of Hong Kong
Supervisor	Junbo WANG (Supervisor) & Zhong NING (External Supervisor)