Shareholder Incentive Alignment and CEO Turnover: The Case of Split-Share Structure Reforms in China

Abstract

In this study we analyze the effect of split-share structure reforms on CEO turnover and performance relationship in Chinese listed firms. We use special dataset that manually categorizes a large number of CEO turnover events as either forced or non-forced. By employing logit regression and interaction effects we find that sensitivity of abnormal stock performance to probability of forced CEO turnover in Chinese SOEs was positive during 1999-2005 but negative during 2006-2011. Post-turnover abnormal stock returns were also higher during 2006-2011 compared to 1999-2005 for Chinese SOEs. The evidence shows that split-share structure reforms affected the CEO turnover-performance relationship through exposure effect, that exposure to stock price changes has forced the owners Chinese SOEs to evaluate the managers for the poor stock performance. This also shows that alignment in the incentives of the minority and majority shareholders helps protect the interests of the minority shareholders by changing the internal monitoring mechanisms of the managers.