School of Finance & Management, Shanghai University of International Business and Economics, Shanghai, China.
College of Business, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Shanghai, China.
PLoS One. 2023 Feb 6;18(2):e0281244. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0281244. eCollection 2023.
Equity incentive, as an institutional arrangement for the coordination of the interests of shareholders and managers, has been widely implemented by public companies in developed capital markets throughout Europe and America. However, does it work and/or when might it be more effective in emerging market economies such as China? We aimed to understand the effects of equity incentive plans implemented by listed companies in China and the potential influence of the general characteristics of contracts on the effectiveness of equity incentive plans. Based on behavioral decision theory, this paper adopts a multivariate linear regression model to analyze the 1695 equity incentive plans implemented in Chinese listed companies between 2010 and 2018 with their two-year lagged performance data. The empirical results show that the operational performance of companies after implementing equity incentive plans shows a trend of polarization. In the 95% confidence interval, the effect of restrictive stock incentive and exercise-constrained variables is not significant, while the validity period has a significant positive correlation and incentive intensity has a significantly negative correlation with the company's operational performance. Furthermore, the negative effects mentioned above become more obvious with a longer plan implementation period. Based on these conclusions, we suggest that companies could adopt equity incentive plans with a relatively longer validity period and more reasonable incentive intensity. Additionally, it would be better for companies to select non-restricted stocks as incentive tools if there is no obvious preference.
股权激励作为协调股东和管理者利益的制度安排，已被欧美发达资本市场的上市公司广泛采用。然而，它在新兴市场经济体（如中国）中是否有效，或者何时可能更有效？我们旨在了解中国上市公司实施股权激励计划的效果，以及合同的一般特征对股权激励计划有效性的潜在影响。基于行为决策理论，本文采用多元线性回归模型，分析了 2010 年至 2018 年期间中国上市公司实施的 1695 项股权激励计划及其两年滞后业绩数据。实证结果表明，公司实施股权激励计划后的经营业绩呈现两极分化趋势。在 95%置信区间内，限售股激励和行权约束变量的效果不显著，而有效期与公司经营业绩呈显著正相关，激励强度与公司经营业绩呈显著负相关。此外，随着计划实施期限的延长，上述负面影响变得更加明显。基于这些结论，我们建议公司可以采用有效期相对较长、激励强度更为合理的股权激励计划。此外，如果没有明显偏好，公司最好选择非限售股作为激励工具。
