关键词: 股权激励, 合法性视角, 效率视角, 社会责任报告披露, 股权集中度

Abstract:     Although many firms have begun to implement equity incentive plans, as an economic tool, can equity incentives help firms achieve social goals? Based on the dual perspectives of legitimacy and efficiency, this paper explored the differential impact of equity incentives on corporate social responsibility (CSR) report disclosure and its boundary conditions, aiming to identify how equity incentives as an economic instrument affect firms′ pursuit of CSR goals, thus helping firms achieve both economic and social goals.Taking the Shanghai and Shenzhen listed companies that disclosed CSR reports from 2009 to 2019 as the research sample, it was found in the research that equity incentives can help firms actively disclose CSR reports, but equity incentives have an inverted U-shaped impact on the quality of CSR report disclosure, that is, the appropriate proportion of senior executives′ shareholding has a strong promoting effect on the quality of CSR report disclosure, and too high or too low shareholding ratio cannot effectively improve the disclosure quality of CSR reports, so equity incentives are not always the "booster" for firms to disclose CSR reports. Further research found that equity concentration enhances the positive relationship between equity incentives and CSR report disclosure speed, but weakens the inverted U-shaped relationship between equity incentives and CSR report disclosure quality. This paper has also made some contributions as follows. First, this paper integrated the dual perspectives of legitimacy and efficiency, deeply explained the contradiction between shareholders and executives in pursuing corporate social goals and economic goals, clarified the different influence mechanisms of equity incentives on CSR report disclosure strategy choices, enriched the research perspectives of equity incentives and CSR report disclosure, and provided new ideas for solving corporate governance problems. Second, as most previous studies have followed the research paradigm of economic means to achieve economic goals, they have not reached consistent research conclusions. This paper proposed a different research paradigm by exploring how equity incentives affect executives′ pursuit of social goals, revealing that equity incentives do not always promote efficient corporate governance. Finally, as most previous studies have focused on the impact of a single factor on executives′ strategic decisions, this paper, based on the firm′s internal incentive mechanism and equity structure, studied the interaction between equity incentives and equity concentration, clarified the effect of executives′ equity incentives on CSR report disclosure strategy under different equity concentration, and pointed out the boundary conditions for equity incentives to affect CSR report disclosure strategy. Therefore, this paper will provide new insights for the research on the influencing factors of CSR report disclosure, and further enrich the role of ownership structure in CSR report disclosure. At the same time, the study of equity concentration also showed that equity concentration is a double-edged sword. Therefore, this paper will also further expand the relevant research on corporate governance.With China′s vigorous implementation of green development and the requirement for firms to pursue high-quality development, CSR report disclosure has become an important target for stakeholders to investigate firms. This has prompted us to re-evaluate the speed and quality of CSR report disclosure and explore the key factors that may influence and drive CSR report disclosure. Second, as CSR report disclosure plays an important role in the sustainable development of firms, appropriate equity incentives for executives are conducive to decision-making based on the long-term interests of the firms. Third, the conclusions of this paper will have significant reference for the formulation of corporate equity incentive plans and the promotion of CSR report disclosure. Finally, this paper will inspire firms to comprehensively consider the impact of equity incentive and equity concentration on corporate governance, and formulate reasonable and effective corporate governance decisions to help firms achieve better development.

Key words: equity incentive, legitimacy perspective, efficiency perspective, social responsibility report disclosure, equity concentration degree