【作者】 凌定胜；

【导师】 戴昌钧； 吴炯；

【作者基本信息】 东华大学 ， 管理科学与工程， 2008， 博士

【摘要】 独立董事制度是英美法系国家公司法中的一项制度。英美法系国家的董事会制度结构是所谓的“单层制”,即股东大会选举董事会,由董事会任命经理层。这样的一个弊端是,董事会实际上是一个决策机构,但是它还必须承担对经理层的监督职能。因此,英美国家的董事会的功能就显得混乱,从而导致董事会的一定程度的“失效”。于是,设立独立董事制度,加强董事会的独立性,加大对经理层的监督力度,就成为一种必然选择。但是我国的董事会制度结构与英美国家却差异很大。我国公司的董事会制度结构是所谓的“双层制”,即在股东大会下分别设立董事会和监事会两个机构。董事会专门负责决策,监事会专门负责监督董事会、经理的活动。由此看来,我国的董事会制度本身已经拥有了监督机构,按理说并不需要实行独立董事制度。但由于我国的监事会的制度设立本身也存在问题,其监督功能在实际上已经失效。因为监事会的成员往往由公司职工、公司退休领导等组成,这些人能在多大程度上对公司现有的董事会成员及经理层进行监督,很值得怀疑。即使如此,由于我国在公司治理结构方面与英美国家存在较大差异,还是有学者反对中国引进独立董事制度的做法。他们从独立董事的作用、独立董事的独立性、独立董事的选聘机制、独立董事的时间和精力、独立董事与监事会之间的相容以及独立董事的社会环境和法律保障等问题出发,对中国引进独立董事制度的合理性表示怀疑。认为对国外制度的引进要充分考虑到中国的国情,否则制度引进后也会因为没有合适的制度土壤而使制度本身失去应有的功效。他们认为应该改革监事会制度,恢复其功能,而不是引进独立董事制度。不过,也有学者认为,我国由于监事会制度的失效,应该引进独立董事制度,加强董事会的独立性,保护广大股东,尤其是中小股东。何况,现在独立董事制度已经成为不同公司治理模式的共同取向,说明独立董事确实有其合理的一面。比如,日本的董事会制度本来与我国相类似,也有监事会负责监督。但是日本却在1993年修改了相关法律,引进了外部检察人制度,相当于英美国家的独立董事制度。所以,目前我们不该争论独立董事该不该引进的问题,而是应该讨论如何使独立董事制度结合中国的实际情况,充分发挥独立董事的职能,改善我国的公司治理状况。不难发现,对中国引进独立董事制度的做法,无论是反对者还是赞成者,都谈到了独立董事制度在中国面临的困难,提出了如何建设独立董事制度的建议。但是,这些建议的实际效果究竟如何?中国目前实行的独立董事具体制度究竟是否合理?对公司治理或者公司绩效的影响究竟如何?学者们并没有能从理论和实证的角度给出充分的回答。目前,关于独立董事的研究主要有两个特点:一是很多关于独立董事的研究很多都是研究独立董事在董事会中所占的比例,即从董事会结构的角度研究独立董事制度对公司治理的影响,分析独立董事比例对公司治理及公司绩效的影响,二是即便那些从其他角度来研究独立董事的文献,比如独立董事与CEO的撤换的关系,或者是独立董事是否能够抑制大股东“掏空”,或者是独立董事与公司信息披露的关系,或者是独立董事与敌意收购市场的关系等等,本质上也还是以独立董事比例为自变量,以其他要研究的对象为因变量来分析的。因此,在很大程度上可以说,大多数的研究本质上是一种关于独立董事“量”的研究,而对于独立董事“特质”的研究相对欠缺。但是,有关董事或高管特质方面的研究却比较丰富。因此,本文在归纳独立董事研究和参考董事或高管特质研究文献的基础上,构建了独立董事特质模型。独立董事特质具体分为五类特质:个体特质,职位特质,独立性特质,行为特质及异质性特质。通过分别分析这五类特质对公司绩效的影响,我们得到了相关结论,也发现了独立董事制度的一些问题,从而可以为完善我国的独立董事制度提供一些经验依据。本文主要研究结论如下:(1)独立董事个体特质对公司绩效的影响。独立董事的学历程度对公司绩效并没有比较明显的正面影响,这个结果说明,并非独立董事学历越高,公司绩效就越好,也说明了有些行业和部门盲目追求高学历的做法的不合理性。此外,独立董事的平均年龄变量对于绩效指标的影响是比较显著的,即平均年龄大的独立董事有利于公司绩效的提升,而超过五十岁以上的独立董事人数比例这一变量,检验结果表明其对公司的经营绩效具有一定的正面影响,这可能是因为年龄偏大的独立董事具有更为丰富的知识和经验。我们的研究表明,同时具有实业界和理论界背景的独立董事更有利于公司绩效。(2)独立董事职位特质对公司绩效的影响。研究发现,公司独立董事的平均任期和任期两年以上的独立董事比例对公司绩效都有比较显著的正面影响,从兼职变量对公司绩效影响来看,研究发现,无论是独立董事的平均兼职数目,还是公司独立董事总的兼职数目,或是兼职家数达两家以上的独立董事的比例,都与公司绩效呈现负相关关系,且比较显著。董事会设立下属委员会对公司绩效有比较显著的正面影响,而且委员会的数量与公司绩效也呈现正相关关系,即委员会的数量越多,公司绩效越好。当考虑到董事长与CEO两职合一的因素时,本文的研究发现,独立董事的权力变量,即董事会委员会的设置情况和公司委员会的数量对公司绩效的影响仍然为正,但是影响力度减轻了。(3)独立董事的独立性特质对公司绩效的影响独立董事领取津贴这一变量对于公司绩效没有显著的影响,但是,地域一致性这个变量对公司绩效有比较明显的正面影响。(4)独立董事的行为特质对公司绩效的影响本文研究发现,独立董事参加会议的次数对公司绩效有积极的促进作用。监督方面的提案与公司绩效有明显的正相关关系,但是独立董事战略方面的提案却与公司绩效呈现比较显著的负相关关系。关于独立董事提交提案数量与公司绩效的关系,统计模型回归的结果表明,提案数量与公司绩效之间存在一定的正相关关系,说明独立董事的勤勉、尽职对公司的发展起到了一定的正面效应。(5)独立董事异质性对公司绩效的影响本文研究发现,独立董事的学历的异质性对公司绩效有不显著的负面影响。我们也发现,独立董事的年龄异质性对公司绩效的影响与学历异质性相类似,也是有不显著的负面影响。关于独立董事的职业背景的异质性与公司绩效的关系,研究发现,两者呈现比较显著的正向关系。最后,我们还发现,独立董事的任期的异质性对公司绩效也有显著的促进作用。本文的主要创新之处体现在以下几个方面:(1)本文在参考了有关文献后,根据独立董事的特点,构建了独立董事特质体系模型,并对独立董事特质对公司绩效的影响进行了实证分析。(2)本文建立了独立董事的行为特质模型,深入分析了独立董事的行为对公司绩效的影响,得出了比较有意义的结论。(3)本文在对独立董事的职业背景进行划分时,首次把独立董事分为三类:学术界的独立董事、实业界的独立董事、兼有学术界和实业界的独立董事。这样的划分更符合客观实际,有利于准确把握独立董事职业背景的对公司绩效的客观影响。(4)首次构建了独立董事的异质性模型,包括学历的异质性、职业背景的异质性、年龄的异质性及任期的异质性。更多还原

【Abstract】 The independent director institution is from America and England.The structure of their board of directors is so-called "monolayer" system,which means shareholders meeting select the board,and the board appoints the management team.One shortcoming of this structure is that the board is a decision-making organization in fact,but it has to take on the responsibility of supervising management team.Thus, the function of the board in America and England is mixed up,which leads misfucntion of board to some extenth.Then establishing the independent director institution to strengthen the independence of board and to supervise the management team is a necessary selection.But the structure of board in China is far different from the one in America and England.The board in China is so-called "double-layer" system,which means that there are board of directors and board of supervisors affiliated to the shareholders meeting.The board of directors takes the responsibility of decision-making and the board of supervisors focuses on supervising the activities of board of directors and management team.It seems that there is no need for China to introduce the independent director institution.However,because of the problem of the board of supervisors,it is out of function actually.Because of the great difference in corporate governance between China and USA, some scholars doubt the introduction of independent director institution.They think there are many problems in Chinese independent director institution including independent director’s function,independence,selection mechanism,time and energy, harmony with board of supervisors and social environment,law guarantee,etc.In their opinion,when introducing the foregin institution,we should take the actual situation into account.For the huge difference in corporate governance between China and America and England,some scholars are against the practice of the independent director in China. They think there are many problems in Chinese independent director institution including independent director’s function,independence,selection mechanism,time and energy,harmony with board of supervisors and social environment,law guarantee, etc.they argue that the introduction of foreign institution should consider the concrete situation of China,otherwise the introduced institution will disfucntion for lack of approcaite environment.But there are also scholars supporting the establishment of the independent director in China because of the disfunction of board of supervisors.The independent director will help strengthen the independence of board of directors to protect shareholders.What’s more,the independent director institution has been the common practice of different corporate governance styles.This fact indicates the independent director institution is reasonable.For example,the Japanese board institution was similar to China’s.But Japan revised its related law to establish institution of outside supervisors which equals the independent director in America and England.So we should not discuss whether we should introduce the independent director institution, but discuss how to utilize it to improve Chinese corporate governance.But there are also scholars supporting the establishment of the independent director in China because of the disfunction of board of supervisors.The independent director will help strengthen the independence of board of directors to protect shareholders.What’s more,the independent director institution has been the common practice of different corporate governance styles.This fact indicates the independent director institution is reasonable.For example,the Japanese board institution was similar to China’s.But Japan revised its related law to establish institution of outside supervisors which equals the independent director in America and England.So we should not discuss whether we should introduce the independent director institution, but discuss how to utilize it to improve Chinese corporate governance.We notice both opponents and supporters of the independent director institution refer to the difficculty in applying it in China and put forward suggestions how to establish it.However,what are the effects of the suggestions? Is reasonable the current independnent director institution in China? How doet it affect the corporate governance or corporate performance? These scholars’ answers to the above questions are not enough both in theory and empirical analysis.Besides,there are two phenomena worthy of notice:the first one is that many literatures are researches of the impact of independent director ratio in board on the company performance;the second one is that even those literatures from different perspectVes also focus on the director ratio of board,whether they focus on the relation between independent director and CEO’s replace or the relation between independent director and information disclosure.In some sense,most researches of independent director are about "quantity" and are tack of "quality".So this paper establishes the independent director idiosyncracy model after summarizing the literatures on independent directors.The model is composed of indVidual idiosyncracy,position idiosyncracy,independence idiosyncracy,behaviour idiosyncracy and heterogeneity idiosyncracy.The paper analyzes the impact of independent director on the company performance and acquires some meaningful conclusions.The main research conclusions are as follows:(1) The impact of indVidual idiosyncracy of independent director on company performance.The education level of independent director has no obvious positVe impact on the company performance,which is consistent with the former research. The result does not indicate that he higher education level,the better company performance,it also shows the irrationality of blindfold pursue for high education level of some industries and departments.The average age of independent director has an obvious impact on company performance;the ratio of above 50 years old of independent director also influences company performance positVely.The result may suggest that the older independent director is more knowledgeable and experienced.The paper examines the relation between the ratio of independent director who has experience of industry field and academic field and the result shows that the relation is positVe correlated.(2) The impact of position idiosyncracy of independent director on company performance.The average tenure of independent director has positVe relation with company performance.The research result shows that the independent director plurality has negatVe impact on company performance.It indicates that although the plurality can make independent director more experienced and more knowledgable,and independent director can bring more resource.But their time and energy is limited,so they can not fulfil their responsibility.Thus limiting the number of independent director in companies is necessary.The establishment of committee in board is in favor of company performance, and the committee of number has positVe relation with company performance.The results indicate that establishment of committee is important for independent director to carry out their responsibility.(3)The impact of independence idiosyncracy of independent director on company performance.Independnet’s allownce does not have obvious positVe impact on company performance,but the region consistency has positVe impact on company performance.(4) The impact of behaviour idiosyncracy of independent director on company performance.The meeting time has positVe impact on company performance.The supervisory proposal is useful to company performance and strategic proposal has negatVe impact on company performance.The number of proposal has positVe impact on company performance.(5) The impact of heterogeneity idiosyncracy of independent director on company performance.The heterogeneity idiosyncracy of education level has inapparently passVe influence,and the heterogeneity idiosyncracy of age has same result.But we find that the heterogeneity idiosyncracy of occupational background is positVe related with company performance,the heterogeneity idiosyncracy of tenure is as the same.The innovation points in the dissertation are following as:(1) The paper establishes the independent director idiosyncracy model and analyzes the impact on company performance.(2)The paper establishes the independent director behavior idiosyncracy model and analyzes the impact on company performance.(3) The paper classify the vocation background of independent director into three kinds:who are from academic field,industrial field and from both fields.(4) The paper establishes the heterogeneity idiosyncracy of independnt director, including heterogeneity idiosyncracy of education level,heterogeneity idiosyncracy of vocation background,heterogeneity idiosyncraey of age and heterogeneity idiosyncracy of tenure.更多还原