Xu Xiangyi is a Level-2 Professor and Doctoral Supervisor of the School of Management and Director of the Corporate Governance Research Center of Shandong University. His research interests cover corporate governance, strategic management, and modern management theory. Professor Xu was selected as the National Teaching Master, Leading Talent of the National Ten Thousand Talents Program, Special Allowances Expert of the State Council, Young and Middle-aged Experts with Outstanding Contributions in Shandong Province, Expert of the High-end Think Tank of Shandong Province, Famous Expert of Social Sciences throughout the 40 Years of Reform and Opening Up, and Outstanding Achievement Awards for Research in Social Sciences of Shandong Province. As a legal advisor of the Standing Committee of Shandong Provincial People's Congress, he also serves as the Vice Standing Chairman of the Chinese Institute of Business Administration(CIBA), Associate Director of the Corporate Governance Committee of the Chinese Academy of Management and Member of the First and Second Teaching Steering Committee for Business Administration under the Ministry of Education of the PRC. Professor Xu has been or is an independent director of such listed companies as Hisense, Shandong High-speed Group, Shandong Publishing & Media Co., Ltd, and Shandong Airlines. Additionally, he has presided over more than 20 research projects involving the National Natural Science Foundation of China(NSFC) and Shandong Provincial Social Science Foundation, published 15 monographs such as Research on Allocation and Coordination of Incentive Contracts for Executives of Listed Companies and Modern Corporate Governance, edited 24 textbooks such as Management and Strategic Management of Enterprise, and has published more than 200 academic papers in journals such as Management World, China Industrial Economics, Nankai Business Review, Science Research Management and Business and Management Journal. Also, he has won more than 20 awards above the provincial and ministerial levels.
Xie Yongzhen is a Doctoral Supervisor and member of the Academic Committee of the School of Management of Shandong University, Director of the Institute of Business Administration, and Deputy Director of the Corporate Governance Research Center of Shandong University. Her research is mainly about corporate governance and has been engaged in the research of quantum management based on the First Principle in recent years. As an advocate of China quantum management theory and practice, Professor Xie has hosted 30 issues of the China Comment on Quantum Management. Employed by Haier to conduct research on the theory and method of "RenDanHeYi", she has been dedicating herself to exploring the theoretical innovations of Haier’s "RenDanHeYi" and its quantum management practice. Also, she serves as the Standing Director of the CIBA, the Corporate Governance Committee of the CIBA, and the China Network Governance Committee and member of the Academic Advisory Committee of the Management Philosophy Committee of the CIBA. Professor Xie is also a member of the editorial board of the Oriental Management section of Foreign Economics & Management, a member of the editorial board of Chinese Culture and Management, a member of the Academic Committee of China, Practice and Management, a columnist and senior researcher of Directors & Boards as well as an expert in the Top Ten Industrial Think Tanks of Old and New Drivers in Shandong Province. Furthermore, she is also the review expert of the NSFC, National Social Science Fund of China(NSSFC), etc., and journals such as Nankai Business Review, Chinese Journal of Management, etc. She has presided over or participated in numerous programs of the NSFC, the NSSFC, Natural Science Foundation and the Social Science Foundation of the Ministry of Education and Shandong Province. Professor Xie has also published dozens of papers in such journals as Nankai Business Review, Management World, Chinese Journal of Management and Foreign Economics & Management.
The 2023 International Symposium on Corporate Governance, co-sponsored by the China Institute of Corporate Governance of Nankai University and Liaoning Technical University, was held at Liaoning Technical University from August 19th to 20th. More than 500 guests, experts and scholars from all walks of life at home and abroad were invited to discuss around theme "Chinese Modernization of Governance and Green Governance". Professor Xu Xiangyi and Professor Xie Yongzhen of the School of Management delivered keynote speeches at the symposium.
Xu Xiangyi: Analysis of the Chinese Modernization of Corporate Governance
Professor Xu Xiangyi analyzed the characteristics and approaches of Chinese modernization of corporate governance from three aspects.
1. Legalization of Governance: institutional arrangement of the power of corporate autonomy, rule of law and administration. There are three sources of the power of corporate autonomy: first, the rights entitled by the national law that could not be deprived; second, the provisions in line with the articles of association; and third, the fiduciary relationship. Corporate autonomy is based on the principle of autonomy in private law, with its core to confirm and protect the freedom and autonomy of civil subjects. Currently, the barrier to corporate autonomy derives not only from the excessive intervention of the government but from the "long-arm jurisdiction" of the controlling shareholder. The parent companies imposing excessive control on and grabbing profit from the listed companies through the "long arm" has become a chronic disease. Therefore, the design of the autonomy mechanism for corporate governance should focus on the independence of corporate strategy, the autonomy of corporate director, the mutuality in the information exposure of corporate, and the inviolability of corporate interests. The legalization of corporate governance does not require the involvement of law in all corporate affairs but enables the law to protect corporate autonomy. The basic content of the legalization of corporate governance is that corporate right of self-organization comes first, followed by that of the rule of law regulation, and the administrative intervention power should be used with deliberation.
2. Marketization of Governance: The market-oriented core stakeholders should govern according to their discretion. Professor Xu believes that the development of the capital market in China is the most important outcome of China's economic reform and the predominant driving force to promote the modernization of corporate governance. The first function of the market is to allocate resources effectively and the second is to facilitate the establishment of mechanisms of trust, reputation and effective cooperation. For corporate governance, the second function of the capital market is of great significance. The goal of the modernization of corporate governance is market-oriented: reasonable decision-making, power check and balance, equitable interest, operation compliance and sound corporate governance. The path to the modernization of corporate governance is the discretionary governance of core stakeholders.
3. Digital Intelligence: to help enhance the effect of positive governance of medium and small shareholders. Professor Xu analyzed that in the past three decades since the emergence of the capital market in China, the pronounced problem is that the vast majority of medium and small shareholders have become outsiders of corporate governance (asymmetric information, high participation costs, and unprofessional governance). Against the backdrop of the accelerating reform of the capital market, digital intelligence should be regarded as the key way and focus to promote the participation of medium and small shareholders in corporate governance and improve the quality of listed companies. First, make full use of digital intelligence to provide more communication channels with greater efficiency for medium and small shareholders, and establish a more transparent information disclosure mechanism, so as to offer basic conditions for them to participate in corporate governance. Second, in the context of the increasing development of digital technology, convenient and open means of information dissemination and communication make cooperation easier and more realistic for medium and small shareholders. Third, digital intelligence will continuously improve the ability of medium and small shareholders to participate in corporate governance, enabling the high-quality transition from "voting with their feet" to "voting by hand" in a more efficient way, which further put the participation of medium and small shareholders in place. Professor Xu pointed out that digital technology will enhance the function of precise decision-making of institutional investors in governance. Under the prevailing trend of digital intelligence, institutional investors can access massive data through big data platforms (information platforms of securities companies, professional information websites, securities exchange markets, news media, etc.) more easily, which empowers them to analyze and judge investments and operations of the corporate more accurately, thus having more motivation to participate in corporate governance. From the perspective of external governance: as artificial intelligence and big data technology advance, the technological approaches to penetrating supervision by government departments have been continuously upgraded, significantly improving the regulation.
Xie Yongzhen: Configuration Research of Innovation-driven Factors of Specialized and Sophisticated Enterprises that produce New and Unique Products.
During the symposium, Professor Xie Yongzhen pointed out that SRDI enterprises (small and medium-sized enterprises with specialized, refined, differential, and innovative characteristics) are a move taken by China to "shore up weak links", serving as key forces to facilitate the solution to the bottleneck and realize the transformation from "large and comprehensive" to "large and strong, small and refined". However, in the process of development, those enterprises are faced with a series of growth problems such as enhancing innovation ability, bridging the digital divide, upgrading the coordination mechanism, increasing financing channels, improving the business climate, etc. Currently, theoretical studies mainly focus on the macro policies, cultivation, high-quality development, finance of supply chain, and digital transformation of SRDI enterprises, but there is still large room for studies that explore the driving force mechanism of those enterprises based on the perspective of internal and external governance coordination. The following two problems need to be broken through by theoretical studies:
1. What are the key factors to realize the innovation drive of SRDI enterprises? Does a single factor constitute the necessary conditions for those enterprises to innovate?
2. Which key drivers will exert a linkage effect and effectively promote innovation in SRDI enterprises? Are there any substitutions and complementarity between different configurations?
Based on holistic methodology and configuration theory, Professor Xie regards enterprises as open systems. Grounded in such theories as technological innovation, she adopts the fsQCA method to construct a TOE conceptual model in which government support and market competition (external), and digital level, shareholders, board of directors, executives and financing constraints (internal) act together on the innovation of those enterprises. Taking 334 A-share listed “little giant” enterprises as research samples, the research on the driving mechanism of SRDI enterprises reveals that the single factors such as government support, market competition, digital transformation, board capital and operation, and CEO ability and incentive do not constitute necessary conditions for innovation, and the synergy of factors must be achieved instead. In general, there are three configurations: (1) innovation driven by major shareholders and the board of directors, supported by the government without competitive pressure, such as Zhongtian Rocket, Fibocom and others. (2) innovation driven by the board with fairly less competitive pressure, fairly sufficient capital as well as support from the government, such as Holystar and Leader Drive. (3) Enterprises that uphold fundamental principles and break new ground under the condition of fierce market competition, sufficient capital and support from the government, such as Xinguang Optic-Electronics and Hi-target. The research also found that support from the government and digital transformation are the key driving forces for the innovation of SRDI enterprises. Innovation of invention and creation is not suitable for enterprises without full support from the government, advanced digital technology, sufficient equity funds and capital of the board. These enterprises should adopt the configuration suitable for their conditions according to their resource endowment, and promote innovation through the resource synergy of relevant factors.
At the symposium, eight doctoral students and master students from the School of Management delivered academic reports in the sub-venue. The title of doctoral student Zhang Yang's report is: Excessive Appointment of Directors by the Parent Company and the Strategic Choice of Subsidiaries; doctoral student Li Yutong's is: Research Review and Prospects on the "Double-edge" Effect of Staggered Boards--Based on Bibliometric and Visualization Map Analysis; doctoral student Zhang Tianyu's is: Effectiveness of the Reverse Mixed Ownership Reform of State-owned Enterprises to Private Enterprises from the Perspective of Social Responsibility; doctoral student Niu Lu's is: How Enterprises "Remove the Old and Bring in the New" under the Background of Overcapacity Reduction: From Resource Arrangement to Second Entrepreneurship--An Embedded Case Study of Jinan Steel Group; master student Qi Huixin's is: Causes and Consequences of the Digital Transformation of State-owned Listed Enterprise Based on the Perspective of Configuration; master student Jia Yujing's is: Configuration Research on Driving Factors of Digital Transformation of Pharmaceutical Enterprises Based on the Governance Mechanism and Technology Collaboration--the Method of Combining NCA and QCA; master student Cui Qiannan's is: Optimization of Governance at the Informal Level Oriented by the Interests of the Board of Directors; master student Qin Jiyao's is: Path of Non-controlling Shareholders Participating in Innovation of State-owned Enterprises.
