The voice of minority shareholders: Online voting and corporate social responsibility

Abstract

In 2014, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange introduced “Rules for the Implementation of Online Voting” to standardize the implementation of online voting for its listed companies. Using this event as an exogenous shock, we design a difference-in-differences model to show that minority shareholders’ participation in online voting improves firms’ corporate social responsibility performance. We reveal that this improvement is achieved through minority shareholders’ positive influence on firms’ internal control and transparency and is more pronounced for private firms and firms with lower levels of profitability and less external monitoring. Accordingly, since the standardization of online voting, minority shareholders have played an important role in corporate governance and have a positive influence on firms’ sustainable development.