Strength in numbers: Minority shareholders' participation and executives' pay-performance sensitivity

This study investigates the effects of minority shareholders' participation in annual general meetings (AGMs) on executives' pay–performance sensitivity (PPS) in a Chinese stock market. Using a novel dataset of minority shareholders' attendance of AGMs, we find that the number of attendees is significantly and positively associated with PPS. The results are robust to the instrumental variable approach, placebo tests, excluding the effect of shareholdings, and using alternative measures of attendance and PPS. We also examine two possible channels and find that the positive effect of minority shareholders' attendance on PPS is mainly driven by the compensation contracting channel, that is, by incorporating more voices from retail investors and independent directors into the compensation contract design, than by the compensation justification channel. Extended analyses show that the impact of minority shareholders' attendance is more pronounced in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and in regions with good investor protection than in non-SOEs and regions with poor investor protection. Additional analyses also find higher minority shareholders' attendance leads to lower executive perk consumption. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of minority shareholders' participation in AGMs and their governance role in the design of executive compensation contracts.