IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/evarev/v49y2025i4p599-624.html

Internal Control Quality and Boardroom Backscratching

Author

Listed:
  • Lei Huang
  • Chunmei Tang
  • Manman Li

Abstract

In modern firms, conflicts may arise between the chief executive officer and board of directors due to the separation of ownership and operations. Such conflicts may weaken listed companies’ performance in the short term or affect their development in the long term. Using data on Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2013 to 2022, this study empirically examines the impact of internal control quality on boardroom backscratching. We find that internal control quality significantly mitigates boardroom backscratching by reducing agency costs and increasing analyst attention. This effect is more significant in firms where the management holds less power and the product market is highly competitive. Furthermore, the mitigating effects of internal control quality on boardroom backscratching effectively reduce the risk of the company’s share price collapsing. Overall, this study enriches the literature on boardroom backscratching and internal control quality, and provides valuable references for stakeholders, including listed companies, to improve firm governance efficiency and, thus, maintain the stability of capital markets.

Suggested Citation

  • Lei Huang & Chunmei Tang & Manman Li, 2025. "Internal Control Quality and Boardroom Backscratching," Evaluation Review, , vol. 49(4), pages 599-624, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:evarev:v:49:y:2025:i:4:p:599-624
    DOI: 10.1177/0193841X241304134
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0193841X241304134
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0193841X241304134?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brick, Ivan E. & Palmon, Oded & Wald, John K., 2006. "CEO compensation, director compensation, and firm performance: Evidence of cronyism?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 403-423, June.
    2. Joel Peress, 2010. "Product Market Competition, Insider Trading, and Stock Market Efficiency," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(1), pages 1-43, February.
    3. Michael C. Jensen, 2010. "The Modern Industrial Revolution, Exit, and the Failure of Internal Control Systems," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 22(1), pages 43-58, January.
    4. Lee, Ji Hye & Byun, Hee Sub & Park, Kyung Suh, 2019. "How does product market competition affect corporate takeover in an emerging economy?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 26-45.
    5. Li, Weibin & Huang, Yingling & Zhou, Hongyong & Liu, Xin, 2024. "CEO power, internal control quality, and entrepreneurial innovation spirit in family enterprises," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 95(PA).
    6. Mounia Boulhaga & Abdelfettah Bouri & Hany Elbardan, 2022. "The effect of internal control quality on real and accrual-based earnings management: evidence from France," Journal of Management Control: Zeitschrift für Planung und Unternehmenssteuerung, Springer, vol. 33(4), pages 545-567, December.
    7. Kim, Jeong-Bon & Li, Yinghua & Zhang, Liandong, 2011. "CFOs versus CEOs: Equity incentives and crashes," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(3), pages 713-730, September.
    8. James S. Ang & Rebel A. Cole & James Wuh Lin, 2000. "Agency Costs and Ownership Structure," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(1), pages 81-106, February.
    9. Dechow, Patricia & Ge, Weili & Schrand, Catherine, 2010. "Understanding earnings quality: A review of the proxies, their determinants and their consequences," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 344-401, December.
    10. Zhao, Tianyu & Yan, Na & Ji, Liya, 2023. "Digital transformation, life cycle and internal control effectiveness: Evidence from China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(PA).
    11. Vidhi Chhaochharia & Yaniv Grinstein & Gustavo Grullon & Roni Michaely, 2017. "Product Market Competition and Internal Governance: Evidence from the Sarbanes–Oxley Act," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(5), pages 1405-1424, May.
    12. Marco Heimann & Étienne Mullet & Jean-François Bonnefon, 2015. "Peoples’ Views About the Acceptability of Executive Bonuses and Compensation Policies," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 127(3), pages 661-671, March.
    13. Christopher S. Armstrong & Christopher D. Ittner & David F. Larcker, 2012. "Corporate governance, compensation consultants, and CEO pay levels," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 322-351, June.
    14. Tingting Zhang & Weiqiang Zeng & Ruohan Zhong & Yanxi Li, 2017. "Industry competition in China: an external governance mechanism or an external incentive," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 31(2), pages 123-136, November.
    15. Pan, Yue & Shroff, Nemit & Zhang, Pengdong, 2023. "The dark side of audit market competition," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(1).
    16. Oliver D. Hart, 1983. "The Market Mechanism as an Incentive Scheme," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(2), pages 366-382, Autumn.
    17. Vu, Quang & Nga, Nguyen Thi Thuy, 2022. "Does the implementation of internal controls promote firm profitability? Evidence from private Vietnamese small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    18. Egor Evdokimov & Dean Hanlon & Edwin KiaYang Lim, 2022. "Do Generalist CEOs Magnify Boardroom Backscratching?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 181(1), pages 221-247, November.
    19. Ali, Ashiq & Klasa, Sandy & Yeung, Eric, 2014. "Industry concentration and corporate disclosure policy," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 240-264.
    20. Bruynseels, L.M.L. & Cardinaels, E., 2014. "The audit committee : Management watchdog or personal friend of the CEO?," Other publications TiSEM 4efbab67-3b44-4eab-9f17-0, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    21. Zhang, Jing & Zhang, Lu & Zhang, Mancen, 2024. "Media pressure, internal control, and corporate environmental information disclosure," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    22. Ji, Xudong & Kaplan, Steven E. & Lu, Wei & Qu, Wen, 2020. "The role of voluntary internal control reporting in earnings quality: Evidence from China," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2).
    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. Cui, Ke & Liu, Tianjing & Wu, Yunyong & Ding, Lina, 2025. "Information barrier, audit quality, and organizational resilience," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 85(PB).
    2. Litchfield, I & Harper, L & Syed, M & Dutton, F & Melyda, M & Wolhuter, C & Bird, C, 2025. "Understanding the influence of leadership, organisation, and policy on delivering an integrated child health and social care service in community settings: A qualitative exploration using the SELFIE framework," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    3. Loubna Eddallal, 2025. "Nigeria: Africa’s Gas Powerhouse in the Making," Policy briefs on Commodities & Energy 2508, Policy Center for the New South.

    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. Babar, Md. & Habib, Ahsan, 2021. "Product market competition in accounting, finance, and corporate governance: A review of the literature," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    2. Lin, Ling & Xiao, Min & Yao, Rongrong & Zhang, Xiaoying, 2024. "Product market liberalization and corporate cash holdings: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    3. Shu, Shaowen & Peng, Wei, 2024. "How does product market competition affect dividend smoothing? Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 177-192.
    4. Dai, Yunhao & Chao, Yang & Wang, Li, 2021. "The brain gain of CFOs in China: The case of analyst forecasts," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    5. Li, Tianpei (Constance) & Walton, Stephanie, 2023. "Is there a dark side of competition? Product market competition and auditor-client contracting," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    6. Liu, Chengcheng & Li, Qing & Lin, Yu-En, 2023. "Corporate transparency and firm value: Does market competition play an external governance role?," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1).
    7. Wu, Fang & Cao, June & Zhang, Xiaosan, 2023. "Do non-executive employees matter in curbing corporate financial fraud?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    8. Vidhi Chhaochharia & Yaniv Grinstein & Gustavo Grullon & Roni Michaely, 2017. "Product Market Competition and Internal Governance: Evidence from the Sarbanes–Oxley Act," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(5), pages 1405-1424, May.
    9. Lin, Fengyi & Lin, Li-Jung & Yeh, Chin-Chen & Wang, Teng-Shih, 2018. "Does the board of directors as Fat Cats exert more earnings management? Evidence from Benford’s law," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 158-170.
    10. Debasis Pahi & Inder Sekhar Yadav, 2022. "Product market competition, agency cost and dividend payouts: new evidence from emerging market," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 26(3), pages 925-956, September.
    11. Richardson, Grant & Obaydin, Ivan & Liu, Chelsea, 2022. "The effect of accounting fraud on future stock price crash risk," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    12. Afzalur Rashid, 2015. "Revisiting Agency Theory: Evidence of Board Independence and Agency Cost from Bangladesh," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 130(1), pages 181-198, August.
    13. Li, Wanfu & Pittman, Jeffrey & Wang, Zi-Tian & Zhao, Ziye, 2025. "The importance of information flow within auditors’ client portfolios to audit quality," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    14. Panayiotis C. Andreou & Constantinos Antoniou & Joanne Horton & Christodoulos Louca, 2016. "Corporate Governance and Firm†specific Stock Price Crashes," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 22(5), pages 916-956, November.
    15. Alshehabi, Ahmad & Halabi, Hussein & Adwan, Sami & Boubaker, Sabri, 2024. "The impact of industry competition on the value relevance of goodwill impairments across different information environments," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    16. Jieying Hong, 2024. "Globalization and stock price crash risk: evidence from the US granting permanent normal trade relations to China," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 55(8), pages 997-1019, October.
    17. Ujjayini Roy & Indrani Chakraborty, 2023. "Market concentration, agency cost and firm performance: a case study on Indian corporate firms," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 56(4), pages 2645-2693, August.
    18. Ludovic Vigneron & Yves Mard, 2016. "Earnings management across publicly traded and privately held French SMEs," International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 29(3), pages 416-440.
    19. Liu, Siqi & Yin, Chao & Zeng, Yeqin, 2021. "Abnormal investment and firm performance," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    20. Paul André & Samer Khalil & Michel Magnan, 2012. "The adoption of deferred share unit plans for outside directors: economic and social determinants," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 16(1), pages 81-105, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:sae:evarev:v:49:y:2025:i:4:p:599-624. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.