2026年第11期(总第1155期)
演讲主题：Legitimacy Challenges and Shareholder Governance of Corporate Political Activity: A Natural Experiment of the U.S. Capitol Riot
主讲人：Bo YANG 香港大学助理教授
主持人：滕敏 计算金融系副教授
活动时间：2026年4月3日（周五）10:00-11:30
活动地址:管院大楼105教室
主讲人简介：
Prof. Bo Yang is an Assistant Professor in Management and Strategy at HKU Business School.
He holds a Ph.D. in Management from the University of Southern California. His research addresses a central question: How can firms effectively engage with various nonmarket stakeholders in external institutional environments—including government agencies, political parties, and activist groups—to manage sociopolitical risks rising from domestic politics and/or geopolitical tensions? By combining insights from strategic management, international business, and comparative politics, he has developed multiple research projects aimed at understanding how firms can achieve better performance by integrating market and nonmarket strategies in an ever-changing sociopolitical landscape. His work has been published in top-tier academic journals such as Journal of International Business Studies, Comparative Political Studies, and the Journal of Corporate Finance.
活动简介：
The rising demand for greater transparency in corporate political activities (CPA) is driven by advocacy that seeks to align corporate influence with effective and fair policymaking. Empirical evidence on shareholders’support for CPA disclosure remains mixed, and there is a lack of theoretical understanding of why, when, and which shareholders take such positions. This study addresses these gaps by focusing on how elevated legitimacy concerns prompt shareholder governance through CPA disclosure. Using the 2021 US Capitol Riot as a natural experiment, we examine the legitimacy shock it created for firms that had contributed to Republican politicians who objected the presidential election results. Leveraging shareholder proposal data, we find that, following the riot, shareholders became more supportive of CPA proposals for firms that had contributed to these objectors. Using fine-grained vote-level data on mutual funds, we further examine shareholder heterogeneity. This research contributes to CPA literature by emphasizing the interplay between legitimacy concerns from the public and shareholders’engagement in corporate governance. This work highlights the growing connection between public and private politics as societal pressure mounts for firms to align their political engagement with social expectations.
