Corporate Governance and Firm Performance: A Sociological Analysis Based on Chinese Experience

Based on the 1997-2007 panel data of 676 listed companies and in-depth interviews with the senior executives, independent directors, fund managers and securities analysts of these companies, this paper tries to analyze the relationship between corporate governance and firm performance from a sociological perspective. The results show that the relationship between corporate governance and firm performance in the Chinese institutional environment is sharply different from the predictions of the agency theory. The empirical findings from China lend strong support to the new institutional argument that “best” corporate governance practices are socially “constructed” by various social forces and interests groups in specific social, political and cultural contexts, and how “good” a corporate governance practice is depends to a large extent on whether it fits in with the institutional environment in which it is embedded. There exists no universally “best” model of corporate governance across the world. Our empirical sociological study based on Chinese experience offers new perspectives and evidence for deconstructing the global myth of corporate governance.