Title: Blockholder-Appointed Directors’ Influence on Board Agenda Setting and Voting

Abstract: Existing research on boards of directors mostly focuses on the voting link, with less attention paid to agenda setting. By analyzing board disclosure information in China, this study finds that minority blockholders can use the directors they appoint to express objections to "tunneling" proposals, and pre-emptively prevent the initiation of such proposals through agenda-setting power and communication with insiders before voting. Policy shocks on the power of blockholders to appoint directors and communication shocks at the meeting level verify the causal relationship of this impact.

Objections put pressure on insiders through negative media coverage, regulatory inquiries, and subsequent general meeting vetoes, thereby prompting insiders to take the initiative to communicate before voting to avoid public backlash. When there are insiders with public conflicts (such as those with political connections) at high risk, minority blockholders reduce the expression of objections but use more agenda-setting methods—indicating that "objections" and "agenda setting" are alternative channels for blockholder governance. The study suggests that focusing only on board voting may ignore the complete corporate governance chain.

Speaker: Wang Qi, Bachelor of Accounting and Finance from the University of Sydney, Doctor of Banking and Finance from the University of New South Wales; currently Research Fellow of the School of Business and Management, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen). His research field focuses on corporate governance and the Chinese market, and he is particularly good at empirically analyzing the game between boards of directors and general meetings by combining large language models (LLM) with full decision-chain big data.

His research results have been presented at top domestic and foreign economic and financial academic conferences such as the American Economic Association (AEA), China Financial Research Conference (CFRC), and Financial Management Association (FMA). He also serves as a member of the Program Selection Committee of international conferences such as FMA Asia/Pacific, FMA Annual, and Eastern Finance Association. His teaching content includes Capital Markets and Institutions, Mergers and Acquisitions, and Advanced Corporate Finance Research Topics (for undergraduates and doctoral students).

Date & time: 27 November 2025, 10:00

Venue: B321, Zhixin Building, Central Campus, Shandong University