CEO duality and firm performance for Chinese shareholding companies

CEO plays an important role in the corporate governance system. Whether CEO duality has negative implication to firm performance has been widely researched. However, empirical evidence showed mixed results. The development of code of best practices in the world over has advocated that CEO and chairman role should be separated. In the new century what is the implication of CEO duality to firm performance for Chinese shareholding companies? Since China’s economic reform from 1980s, Chinese government endeavoured to separate government from control of state-owned enterprises which equalled to the increasing separation of principal from agents. The agency problem worsened and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) performance deteriorated during the process of reform. This study tries to shed lights by answering the question: “Does CEO duality leadership structure have negative implications to the performance of Chinese shareholding companies compared to split positions? ” Agency theory and stewardship theory have conflicting assumptions of huma