CEO强制变更对盈余管理的溢出效应

董文昊　刘春林

（南京大学）

内容提要：公司高管变更是约束经理人行为的重要治理机制，且具有行业溢出效应。本文以2009—2022年A股上市公司为研究样本，探究同行首席执行官（CEO）强制变更对焦点公司盈余管理行为的影响。研究结果显示，不同于西方国家，中国情境下同行CEO强制变更会提升焦点公司的盈余管理程度。异质性分析结果表明，市场化程度、长期机构投资者持股及CEO的金融背景都可以抑制同行CEO强制变更对焦点公司盈余管理的促进作用；相反，这一促进作用在具有海外背景的CEO群体中更加明显。进一步地，同行CEO的强制变更仅对向上盈余管理有提升作用，这验证了焦点公司CEO职业安全感缺失下的印象管理动机。本文深入探讨了中国当前公司治理实践中CEO强制变更的溢出效应，为更好地推动上市公司高质量信息披露提供了新的启示。

关键词：数字技术；资源整合能力；价值共创；创新生态系统韧性；制度环境

作者简介：董文昊，南京大学商学院博士研究生，南京，210093；刘春林，南京大学商学院教授、博士生导师，通信作者。

基金项目：国家自然科学基金面上项目“制度抗拒与代际断裂：新生代高管对企业社会责任行为的影响研究”（72072085）

引用格式：董文昊,刘春林.CEO强制变更对盈余管理的溢出效应[J].经济与管理研究,2025,46(3):128-144.

Spillover Effect of CEO Forced Turnover on Earnings Management

DONG Wenhao, LIU Chunlin

(Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093)

Abstract: CEO forced turnover serves as an important mechanism for regulating top managers’ behaviors and reducing agency problems. As research on the spillover effects of CEO forced turnover extends from developed to developing countries, this paper uncovers a new explanatory mechanism for CEOs’ impression management behaviors under conditions of job insecurity.

Using a sample of A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2009 to 2022, this paper empirically examines the spillover effects of CEO forced turnover on earnings management behaviors. The findings reveal that peer CEO forced turnover can increase earnings management in focal firms. Heterogeneity tests indicate that higher marketization levels, long-term institutional ownership, and CEOs with financial backgrounds mitigate the positive correlation between peer CEO forced turnover and earnings management in focal firms. Further analysis demonstrates that peer CEO forced turnover is significantly associated only with upward earnings management in focal firms. In addition, it also discusses the CEOs’ choice of earnings management methods, and the empirical results show that managers tend to refrain from real earnings management to change the company’s current business decisions, in order to prevent adverse impacts on future performance. Finally, this paper finds that the stimulative effect of peer CEO forced turnover on earnings management in the focal firms is significant but limited to the short term. Moreover, although the focal firms’ CEOs may resort to earnings management to enhance their job security, this strategy does not appear to reduce the likelihood of forced turnover in the subsequent year.

This paper makes three key contributions. First, it extends the research on the industry spillover effects of CEO forced turnover from developed to developing countries and proposes that under China’s institutional context, CEO forced turnover does not exert a disciplinary effect on other firms within the industry. Instead, it stimulates the earnings management motives of CEOs in focal firms. Second, it finds that improvements in regulatory and governance environments are crucial in curbing earnings management driven by CEOs’ job insecurity. The development of market institutions and the role of long-term institutional investors in internal governance can mitigate the stimulative effect of peer CEO forced turnover on earnings management in focal firms to a certain extent. Third, it deeply discusses the spillover effect of CEO forced turnover in China’s current corporate governance practice, with practical significance for preventing the diffusion of executive change risk in the industrial chain. From the perspective of practice, CEO forced turnover will have many negative impacts on the event company itself, such as negative market reaction and chaotic internal operation. How to be alert to and prevent CEO forced turnover from causing a greater negative impact in the industry has practical significance.

Keywords: CEO forced turnover; earnings management; impression management; corporate governance; CEO characteristics

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