›› 2019, Vol. 31 ›› Issue (4): 42-57.

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Can Mixed Ownership Improve Firm Innovation?——An Integrated Perspective of Principal-Agent Conflicts and Principal-Principal Conflicts

Zhang Bin1,2, Li Hongbin3, Chen Yan3   

  1. 1. Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, Beijing 100871;
    2. School of Business Administration, Henan University of Economics and Law, Zhengzhou 450046;
    3. School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876
  • Received:2017-05-08 Online:2019-04-28 Published:2019-04-26

Abstract:

Mixed ownership has become a key breakthrough in the reform of state-owned enterprises, while this spontaneously pushes managers into a dilemma. Concentrated ownership would easily lead to principal-principal conflicts, while dispersed ownership might bring serious principal-agent problems. Therefore, this paper seeks some new train of thoughts for the reform from the perspective of innovation. Based on the integration of principal-agent conflicts and principal-principal conflicts, this paper analyzes and tests the relationship between mixed ownership and innovation performance, and examines the moderating effect of the nature of the enterprise and the level of institutional development. The results show that the mixed depth and the mixed scope of ownership could significantly improve the innovation performance. From the viewpoint of mixed depth, there are no significant differences between state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and non-state-owned enterprises (NSOEs), while from the perspective of mixed scope, the relationship between mixed ownership and innovation performance became stronger in NSOEs. In the high level of institutional development, the effect of mixed ownership on innovation performance is stronger than in the low level. This study not only enriches the agency theory, but also provides some new inspirations for the path selection of SOEs reform and the improvement of corporate governance mechanisms.

Key words: mixed ownership, innovation performance, principal-agent conflicts, principal-principal conflicts