Can Employee Stock Ownership Plans Improve SOE Performance

Since the release of the Guidance on the Implementation of employee stock ownership plan pilot in listed companies in 2014,employee stock ownership plan（ESOP）has been the hottest incentive method for listed companies in our country,and many enterprises have jumped to the occasion,especially state-owned enterprises are no exception.In particular,the first batches of state-owned enterprises to implement ESOP were born after SASAC issued the Opinions on the Pilot of Employee Shareholdings in State-controlled Mixed-owned Enterprises.As a long-term incentive,ESOP can promote employees and shareholders to form a community of interests and achieve a win-win situation,thus it attracts more and more enterprises to implement ESOP.As a higher-level incentive method,ESOP has the effect of solving agency problem,reducing the agency cost and increasing shareholder wealth.However,in practice,how should ESOP be designed and implemented?Whether the implementation of ESOP has really improved the performance of enterprises still needs to be discussed further.ESOP has been applied in many companies.Among them,Shanghai International Port Corporation,a port industry leader,which acts as an pacesetter,the implementation effect of its ESOP has been attracted more and more attention.Shanghai International Port Corporation launched ESOP in November 2014 and closed in June 2015.That was five years ago,so it can study long-term or short-term implementation effect.All in all,Shanghai International Port Corporation has certain representativeness.This thesis selects Shanghai International Port Corporation as the research object,analyzes in detail the specific design and implementation process of ESOP,and focuses on the impact of ESOP on firm performance from the perspectives of finance and non-financial,internal and external,short-term and long-term.This thesis not only enriches the research on the economic consequences of ESOP,but also provides reference experience for other enterprises to design and implement ESOP.The thesis includes the following seven sections:The first part is the introduction.It spells out research background,significance,content and methods,innovation points of this thesis and relevant literature review.The second part is theory outline.Based on the concept and characteristics of ESOP,this thesis explores the relevant theoretical basis of ESOP and the relevant performance evaluation methods.The third part is the background and motivation analysis of the implementation of ESOP by Shanghai International Port Corporation,including Company Profile,Industry Environmental Analysis,Background Necessity and Driver Analysis.The fourth part is the analysis of the specific content of ESOP of Shanghai International Port Company,which includes the design principles,specific content and implementation process.The fifth part is the performance evaluation of ESOP.According to the relevant research,this thesis introduces BSC and event research method to analyze its internal incentive effbect and external shareholder wealth effect,and finds out the overall influence of ESOP on the enterprise performance of Shanghai International Port Company.The sixth part is the case revelation.Summarize experience from the case of Shanghai International Port Company,from the timing of implementation to the details of implementation content,in order to provide reference for other enterprises which intend to implement ESOP.The seventh part is the case conclusion and prospect.The study of the full text is summarized and the future research direction is pointed out.This thesis uses methods that combine case study method,literature research approach,financial index analysis method and event study approach,which conducts a comprehensive study of ESOP,and draw the corresponding experience and inspiration.The innovation point of this thesis lies in:Firstly,the innovation of research perspective.The research on ESOP mainly focuses on empirical research and few case studies,and more concentrated in the prior and in the event of research.In other words,there is a lot of literature on the motivation and process of ESOP,and the economic consequences of ESOP is not researched deeply.Therefore,this thesis makes an innovative research on the economic consequences of ESOP,which makes up for the lack of research in this area,and enriches the relevant theoretical research of ESOP.This thesis studies,on the one hand,can be based on its feedback to help the relevant departments to develop more perfect rules and regulations.On the other hand,it can also provide some reference value for the design and implementation of the enterprise’s ESOP in the future.Secondly,the innovation of evaluation method.In the past,the previous research on the performance evaluation of ESOP is mainly based on financial indicators which are distinctly limited.Based on the existing performance evaluation methods,this thesis is not limited to financial indicators,but also focuses on some non-financial indicators.And this thesis studies the impact of ESOP on firm performance from internal and external perspectives.It not only considers the impacts of ESOP on employees,customers,etc.,but also considers external factors like shareholder wealth.By this way,it makes the performance evaluation of ESOP more three-dimensional.