员工持股计划已被各行业广泛采纳,为深入探究其对企业的影响,本文以2018~2022年沪深A股上市公司的数据为研究样本,系统考察企业实施员工持股计划与其审计质量之间的内在联系。实证分析结果显示,相较于未实施员工持股计划的企业,实施该计划的企业在审计质量方面展现出明显的提升。此外,本研究进一步引入委托代理成本作为中介变量,进行机制检验。结果显示,员工持股计划之所以能够对企业审计质量产生积极影响,主要是通过降低高管机会主义行为的方式实现的。进一步的深入分析表明,员工持股计划对非国有企业的审计质量具有尤为显著的积极影响。The employee stock ownership plans (ESOP) have been widely adopted across various industries. To further explore its impact on enterprises, this paper takes the data of A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2018 to 2022 as the research sample to systematically examine the intrinsic relationship between the implementation of ESOP and audit quality. The empirical analysis results show that compared to companies that have not implemented the ESOP, those that have implemented it have demonstrated significant improvements in audit quality. Furthermore, this study introduces agency costs as an intermediary variable for mechanism testing. The results indicate that the positive impact of ESOP on audit quality is primarily achieved through reducing opportunistic behavior of executives. Further in-depth analysis reveals that ESOP has a particularly significant positive effect on audit quality in non-state-owned enterprises.
