IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jebusi/v90y2017icp17-30.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act on corporate innovation

Author

Listed:
  • Gu, Yuqi
  • Zhang, Ling

Abstract

We study the effect of the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) on corporate innovation. SOX dramatically changed corporate governance landscape of public firms in the U.S, especially in increasing monitoring from outside independent directors, which may have an impact on corporate innovation. The passage of SOX introduced an exogenous shock to the corporate governance structure, which enables us to establish causality between SOX and corporate innovation. Using patent and citation data from the NBER patent citation database, board of directors data from Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and a difference-in-difference regression technique, we find that SOX increases corporate innovation, as measured by the number of patents and the number of citations per patent. Moreover, we find that the effects are stronger for firms facing more severe agency problems, i.e., firms with more entrenched CEOs as proxied by a longer tenure, and firms with low institutional ownerships. The effect is also found to be stronger for firms operating in innovative industries.

Suggested Citation

  • Gu, Yuqi & Zhang, Ling, 2017. "The impact of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act on corporate innovation," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 17-30.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jebusi:v:90:y:2017:i:c:p:17-30
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jeconbus.2016.12.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148619516301217
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jeconbus.2016.12.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Romer, Paul M, 1986. "Increasing Returns and Long-run Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(5), pages 1002-1037, October.
    2. Gustavo Manso, 2011. "Motivating Innovation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(5), pages 1823-1860, October.
    3. Holmstrom, Bengt, 1989. "Agency costs and innovation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 305-327, December.
    4. Philippe Aghion & Nick Bloom & Richard Blundell & Rachel Griffith & Peter Howitt, 2005. "Competition and Innovation: an Inverted-U Relationship," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 120(2), pages 701-728.
    5. Philippe Aghion & John Van Reenen & Luigi Zingales, 2013. "Innovation and Institutional Ownership," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(1), pages 277-304, February.
    6. Stewart C. Myers & Nicholas S. Majluf, 1984. "Corporate Financing and Investment Decisions When Firms Have InformationThat Investors Do Not Have," NBER Working Papers 1396, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Myers, Stewart C. & Majluf, Nicholas S., 1984. "Corporate financing and investment decisions when firms have information that investors do not have," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 187-221, June.
    8. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 1999. "Is There a Discretion in Wage Setting? A Test Using Takeover Legislation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 30(3), pages 535-554, Autumn.
    9. Chen, Yenn-Ru & Chuang, Wei-Ting, 2009. "Alignment or entrenchment? Corporate governance and cash holdings in growing firms," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 62(11), pages 1200-1206, November.
    10. Lixiong Guo & Ronald W. Masulis, 2015. "Board Structure and Monitoring: New Evidence from CEO Turnovers," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(10), pages 2770-2811.
    11. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W., 1989. "Management entrenchment : The case of manager-specific investments," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 123-139, November.
    12. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2003. "Enjoying the Quiet Life? Corporate Governance and Managerial Preferences," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(5), pages 1043-1075, October.
    13. Dittmar, Amy & Mahrt-Smith, Jan & Servaes, Henri, 2003. "International Corporate Governance and Corporate Cash Holdings," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 38(1), pages 111-133, March.
    14. Nicola Lacetera, 2001. "Corporate Governance and the Governance of Innovation: The Case of Pharmaceutical Industry," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 5(1), pages 29-59, March.
    15. Grinstein, Yaniv & Hribar, Paul, 2004. "CEO compensation and incentives: Evidence from M&A bonuses," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 119-143, July.
    16. Dalton, Dan R. & Dalton, Catherine M., 2008. "Corporate governance in the post Sarbanes-Oxley period: Compensation disclosure and analysis (CD&A)," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 85-92.
    17. Henrik Cronqvist & Fredrik Heyman & Mattias Nilsson & Helena Svaleryd & Jonas Vlachos, 2009. "Do Entrenched Managers Pay Their Workers More?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(1), pages 309-339, February.
    18. Bronwyn H. Hall & Adam Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg, 2005. "Market Value and Patent Citations," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(1), pages 16-38, Spring.
    19. Nanda, Ramana & Rhodes-Kropf, Matthew, 2013. "Investment cycles and startup innovation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(2), pages 403-418.
    20. Anzhela Knyazeva & Diana Knyazeva & Ronald W. Masulis, 2013. "The Supply of Corporate Directors and Board Independence," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 26(6), pages 1561-1605.
    21. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    22. Viral V. Acharya & Krishnamurthy V. Subramanian, 2009. "Bankruptcy Codes and Innovation," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(12), pages 4949-4988, December.
    23. Hall, B. & Jaffe, A. & Trajtenberg, M., 2001. "The NBER Patent Citations Data File: Lessons, Insights and Methodological Tools," Papers 2001-29, Tel Aviv.
    24. Hirshleifer, David & Hsu, Po-Hsuan & Li, Dongmei, 2013. "Innovative efficiency and stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(3), pages 632-654.
    25. Raquel Ortega-Argilés & Rosina Moreno & Jordi Caralt, 2005. "Ownership structure and innovation: is there a real link?," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 39(4), pages 637-662, December.
    26. Dixit, Avinash K & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1977. "Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(3), pages 297-308, June.
    27. Leonid Kogan & Dimitris Papanikolaou & Amit Seru & Noah Stoffman, 2017. "Technological Innovation, Resource Allocation, and Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 132(2), pages 665-712.
    28. Jensen, Michael C, 1986. "Agency Costs of Free Cash Flow, Corporate Finance, and Takeovers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 323-329, May.
    29. Thomas J. Chemmanur & Elena Loutskina & Xuan Tian, 2014. "Corporate Venture Capital, Value Creation, and Innovation," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(8), pages 2434-2473.
    30. Brickley, James A. & Coles, Jeffrey L. & Terry, Rory L., 1994. "Outside directors and the adoption of poison pills," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 371-390, June.
    31. Horwitz, Bn & Kolodny, R, 1980. "The Economic-Effects Of Involuntary Uniformity In The Financial-Reporting Of R And D Expenditures," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18, pages 38-74.
    32. Baranchuk, Nina & Kieschnick, Robert & Moussawi, Rabih, 2014. "Motivating innovation in newly public firms," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(3), pages 578-588.
    33. Holmström, Bengt, 1989. "Agency Costs and Innovation," Working Paper Series 214, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    34. Weisbach, Michael S., 1988. "Outside directors and CEO turnover," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1-2), pages 431-460, January.
    35. Elyasiani, Elyas & Jia, Jingyi Jane, 2008. "Institutional ownership stability and BHC performance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(9), pages 1767-1781, September.
    36. Charles W. L. Hill & Scott A. Snell, 1988. "External control, corporate strategy, and firm performance in research‐intensive industries," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(6), pages 577-590, November.
    37. Steven Salop, 1977. "The Noisy Monopolist: Imperfect Information, Price Dispersion and Price Discrimination," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 44(3), pages 393-406.
    38. Jarrod Johnston & Jeff Madura, 2009. "The Pricing of IPOs Post‐Sarbanes‐Oxley," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 44(2), pages 291-310, May.
    39. Fama, Eugene F & Jensen, Michael C, 1983. "Separation of Ownership and Control," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(2), pages 301-325, June.
    40. Chinmoy Ghosh & Erasmo Giambona & John Harding & C. Sirmans, 2011. "How Entrenchment, Incentives and Governance Influence REIT Capital Structure," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 43(1), pages 39-72, July.
    41. Kumar, Praveen & Rabinovitch, Ramon, 2013. "CEO Entrenchment and Corporate Hedging: Evidence from the Oil and Gas Industry," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 48(3), pages 887-917, June.
    42. Borokhovich, Kenneth A. & Parrino, Robert & Trapani, Teresa, 1996. "Outside Directors and CEO Selection," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 31(3), pages 337-355, September.
    43. Miozzo, Marcela & Dewick, Paul, 2002. "Building competitive advantage: innovation and corporate governance in European construction," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 989-1008, August.
    44. Byrd, John W. & Hickman, Kent A., 1992. "Do outside directors monitor managers? *1: Evidence from tender offer bids," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 195-221, October.
    45. Lily Qiu, 2004. "Which Institutional Investors Monitor? Evidence from Acquisition Activity," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2497, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Jun 2006.
    46. Chakraborty, Atreya & Rzakhanov, Zaur & Sheikh, Shahbaz, 2014. "Antitakeover provisions, managerial entrenchment and firm innovation," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 30-43.
    47. Peggy M. Lee, 2005. "A comparison of ownership structures and innovations of US and Japanese firms," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(1), pages 39-50.
    48. Francis, Jennifer & Smith, Abbie, 1995. "Agency costs and innovation some empirical evidence," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2-3), pages 383-409, April.
    49. Coles, Jeffrey L. & Daniel, Naveen D. & Naveen, Lalitha, 2008. "Boards: Does one size fit all," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 329-356, February.
    50. Faleye, Olubunmi & Hoitash, Rani & Hoitash, Udi, 2011. "The costs of intense board monitoring," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(1), pages 160-181, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bendig, David, 2022. "Chief operating officer characteristics and how they relate to exploration via patenting versus venturing," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 297-309.
    2. Yin Liu & Huiqi Gan & Khondkar Karim, 2020. "Corporate risk-taking after adoption of compensation clawback provisions," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 617-649, February.
    3. Qianhui Ma & Lan Ju & Zishi Zhang, 2022. "Innovation Input and Firm Value: Based on the Moderating Effect of Internal Control," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(18), pages 1-24, September.
    4. Ahmad, Muhammad Farooq & Aziz, Saqib & Dowling, Michael & Kowalewski, Oskar, 2023. "Board reforms and innovation," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    5. James, Hui Liang & Wang, Hongxia & Xie, Yamin, 2018. "Busy directors and firm performance: Does firm location matter?," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 1-37.
    6. Elena Gerasimova B. & Е. Герасимова Б., 2018. "Комплексный анализ устойчивости деятельности организации: методология и технология стандартизации // Complex Analysis of the Sustainability of the Organization: Methodology and Technology of Standardi," Мир новой экономики // The world of new economy, Финансовый университет при Правительстве Российской Федерации // Financial University under The Governtment оf The Russian Federation, vol. 12(1), pages 46-55.
    7. Wei, Yu & Nan, Haoxi & Wei, Guiwu, 2020. "The impact of employee welfare on innovation performance: Evidence from China's manufacturing corporations," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 228(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ching-Hung Chang & Qingqing Wu, 2021. "Board Networks and Corporate Innovation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(6), pages 3618-3654, June.
    2. Lili Dai & Rui Shen & Bohui Zhang, 2021. "Does the media spotlight burn or spur innovation?," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 343-390, March.
    3. Nguyen, Lily & Vu, Le & Yin, Xiangkang, 2020. "The undesirable effect of audit quality: Evidence from firm innovation," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(6).
    4. Balsmeier, Benjamin & Fleming, Lee & Manso, Gustavo, 2017. "Independent boards and innovation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(3), pages 536-557.
    5. Mark Humphery‐Jenner & Emdad Islam & Lubna Rahman & Jo‐Ann Suchard, 2022. "Powerful CEOs and Corporate Governance," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(1), pages 135-188, March.
    6. Lily Nguyen & Le Vu & Xiangkang Yin, 2021. "Share repurchases and firm innovation," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(S1), pages 1665-1695, April.
    7. Moshirian, Fariborz & Tian, Xuan & Zhang, Bohui & Zhang, Wenrui, 2021. "Stock market liberalization and innovation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(3), pages 985-1014.
    8. Oh, Frederick Dongchuhl & Shin, Sean Seunghun, 2020. "Does product market competition affect corporate governance? Evidence from corporate takeovers," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 68-87.
    9. Chen Lin & Sibo Liu & Gustavo Manso, 2021. "Shareholder Litigation and Corporate Innovation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(6), pages 3346-3367, June.
    10. Zhao, Qifeng & Li, Zhen & Yu, Yihua, 2021. "Does top management quality promote innovation? Firm-level evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    11. Chen, Yangyang & Podolski, Edward J. & Veeraraghavan, Madhu, 2015. "Does managerial ability facilitate corporate innovative success?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 313-326.
    12. Brav, Alon & Jiang, Wei & Ma, Song & Tian, Xuan, 2018. "How does hedge fund activism reshape corporate innovation?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(2), pages 237-264.
    13. Balsmeier, Benjamin & Buchwald, Achim & Stiebale, Joel, 2014. "Outside directors on the board and innovative firm performance," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(10), pages 1800-1815.
    14. Francis, Bill & Mani, Suresh Babu & Sharma, Zenu & Wu, Qiang, 2021. "The impact of organization capital on firm innovation," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    15. Kang, Jun-Koo & Liu, Wei-Lin & Low, Angie & Zhang, Le, 2018. "Friendly boards and innovation," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 1-25.
    16. Hedy Jiaying Huang & Ahsan Habib & Sophia Li Sun & Ying Liu & Huiting Guo, 2021. "Financial reporting and corporate innovation: a review of the international literature," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(4), pages 5439-5499, December.
    17. Lily Nguyen & Le Vu & Xiangkang Yin, 2021. "The bright side of co‐opted boards: Evidence from firm innovation," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 56(1), pages 29-53, February.
    18. Chen, Jie & Leung, Woon Sau & Evans, Kevin P., 2016. "Are employee-friendly workplaces conducive to innovation?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 61-79.
    19. Seong K. Byun & Jong-Min & Han Xia, 2021. "Incremental vs. Breakthrough Innovation: The Role of Technology Spillovers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(3), pages 1779-1802, March.
    20. Tu Nguyen & Jing Zhao, 2021. "Industry tournament incentives and corporate innovation," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(9-10), pages 1797-1845, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Sarbanes-Oxley Act; Corporate governance; Board of directors; Independent directors; Innovation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G39 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Other

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jebusi:v:90:y:2017:i:c:p:17-30. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-economics-and-business .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.