独立董事:代理问题之一部分

本文研究独立董事制度。经理人的性质在于其是以经营才能方面的人力资本优势加入企业合约而实质拥有企业剩余控制权的人力资本所有者。当董事和董事会实质拥有企业剩余控制权时, 独立董事和内部董事都是企业的经理人, 董事会就是企业的管理层, 董事 (董事会) 与股东之间存在着实质的代理关系和代理问题。因此, 作为经理人的独立董事, 其本身首先是代理问题的一部分, 只有在其与股东之间的代理问题得到较好解决之后, 独立董事才可能成为一种有效的公司治理机制。本文认为, 有关各方缺乏对独立董事的经理人性质和其本身首先是代理问题的一部分的共同认知, 而这正是导致企业董事会的独立性与企业业绩之间不存在显著关系或呈现显著负相关关系的根本原因之所在。

Independent Directors: A Part of Agency Problem

The paper studies the independent directors institution.We define the natu re of executives as the human capital owners who enter into firm contracts with their human capital concerning capacity to run a firm and own the residual right s of control.When directors and the board of directors substantively own the res idual rights of control,both independent directors and inside directors are the executives of firm in nature,the board of directors is the management,there is s ubstantive agency relationship and agency problem between directors(the board of directors)and shareholders.Consequently,as executives of firm,independent direc tors themselves are a part of agency problem at first.Independent directors may not be a kind of efficient corporate governance mechanism until the agency probl em between independent directors and shareholders has been sufficiently alleviat ed.In our view,the absence of common cognition that independent directors are fi rm executives and that independent directors at first are a part of agency probl em is the underlying reason which should be responsible for the insignificant re lation or significantly negative relation between board independence and firm pe rformance.