The Relationship between Levels of Equity-Based Incentives and Company Performance -An Empirical Study Based on China Listed Companies after Equity Division Reform

Sampled on listed companies which implemented equity incentives after equity division reform, this paper studied the relationship between levels of equity-based incentives and company performance, which is represented by market and integrated accounting performance. We find that a significant difference of companies´ performance after giving executive equity-based incentive. Moreover, there´s a significantly positive relationship between companies´ performance and the levels of restricted stock incentive, but there´s a non-significantly positive relationship between companies´ performance and the levels of stock option incentive. At the same time, the findings also revealed a number of issues in China´s securities market, as well as internal governance structure of listed companies.