Research On Alliance Governance Of The Equity Alliance Between Chinese Commercial Banks And Foreign Institutions

At the beginning of this century, many Chinese banks introduced foreigninstitutions as their alliance partners against the backdrop of financial globalizationfor the purpose of their development in the reform of banking industry in China. Theybear the hope that this will improve their competitiveness through in-depth resourceintegration and capital supplement. However, disputes concerning this issue prevail inthe academic circle due to different perspectives people take. Most of the disputescenter on the point whether the state-owned stock rights are sold at too cheap a priceor whether the invitation of strategic investment will threaten our financial security.Little attention has been given to the mode and content of the strategic alliancecooperation between Chinese banks and foreign institutions, especially the alliancegovernance after both sides enter into equity cooperation. Considering the abovementioned situation, this paper is devoted to make an in-depth and systematicanalysis of the strategic alliance governance from the practical situation of alliancecooperation between Chinese banks and foreign institutions. In the analysis,normative analysis and empirical analysis are combined to investigate the issue;besides case analysis and quantitative analysis tools have been adopted. The paper gives a review of the research achievements made concerning thealliance governance between Chinese banks and foreign institutions in the first placefrom two perspectives of alliance governance and alliance bank governance. Inaddition, the paper makes a general analysis of the previous documents and literaturefrom the aspect of alliance structure, governance mechanism and performance. Basedon these analyses and the transaction cost theory as well as resource theory andinstitutional theory, the author conducts analysis and research into the issue ofalliance governance after the introduction of foreign shareholders to Chinese banks.In the second place, this paper makes an all-round analysis of the strategic alliancegovernance between the China Construction Bank and the Bank of America. Thepaper discusses the measures taken and the effects of those measures since the Bankof America becomes an alliance partner of the China Construction Bank from theaspect of alliance contracts governance, alliance structure selection, board governance,trust-based incentive mechanism, control mechanism and so on. On one hand, thepaper confirms the assumption proposed by case and practical evidence. On the otherhand, in the process of case study and analysis, the author discovers some issues thatneed clarification, which develop more room for further empirical study. In the end,the author collects sample data from fifteen Chinese banks which introduced foreign strategic alliance partners in recent years on the basis of previous normative analysisand case study. The paper confirms the transmission mechanism between alliancemotivation, alliance structure (equity structure, resource structure), alliancegovernance mechanism and performance in overseas equity alliance between Chinesebanks and foreign institutions by analyzing the relations between different variablesthrough data validation and empirical analysis. The analysis is conducted from twoperspectives of equity institutions and resource structure following the analyticallogic of “alliance motivation�'alliance structure�'alliance governance mechanismand behavior�'alliance performance”.Conclusions are as follows: first, alliance motivation influences the compositionand selection of the structure of Chinese banks and foreign institutions alliance.Different alliance motivation (anticipation of the depth, broadness and lasting time)will influence selection of foreign partners and the ratio of equity investment byforeign shareholders. Second, the differences in alliance structure lead to variablealliance governance mechanism. Different share proportion, equity centralization andthe resource background of the alliance partner mean differences in transaction costand resource advantages, which lead to different strategies and standpoint adopted bythe foreign alliance partner in the selection of alliance governance mechanism. In the third place, alliance governance mechanism is a mediator variable between alliancestructure and performance. Differences in alliance structure lead to different alliancegovernance mechanism. As a comparably concrete mechanism of alliance operationmechanism, differences in alliance governance mechanism give rise to differentinstitutional systems, transaction cost systems and resource integration systems,which bring about variable performance of banks.The innovation of this paper lies in: first, the systematic research on thegovernance structure, mechanism and performance of Chinese commercial banksafter the introduction of strategic investors from the perspective of alliancegovernance; second, the research on the influence of foreign resource background onthe structure and mechanism of alliance governance between Chinese banks andforeign investors; third, new measurement method toward indices which are hard tomeasure including agreement completeness. The conclusion of this research issignificant and instructive to the understanding of practical effects of alliancegovernance between Chinese banks and foreign institutions; besides it also provides avaluable reference to the further internationalization of Chinese banking industry.