The power of sharing: Evidence from institutional investor cross-ownership and corporate innovation

We examine the impact of institutional investor cross-ownership in the same industry (IICO) on corporate innovation. Previous studies suggest that there are pros and cons of IICO. Using a sample of Chinese firms, we document that IICO positively affects corporate innovation, which is consistent with the knowledge-sharing and monitoring hypothesis. Our findings are robust to alternative specifications of IICO and innovation, alternative estimation methods, and after accounting for endogeneity. Further analyses suggest that when firms have highly concentrated ownership (in terms of large shareholders) or the check-and-balance among large shareholders is weak, the impact of IICO on innovation is more pronounced; which corroborate with the underlying logic of enhancing monitoring in the presence of IICO. In terms of knowledge-sharing, we find that the impact of IICO on innovation is more pronounced when a firm faces highly competitive product market, which corroborates with the logic that institutional investors are able to bring knowhow from one firm to benefit another firm.