Is China's corporate governance beginning to come of age? The case of CEO turnover

This study examines the effectiveness of China's corporate governance during the rapid transition of its economy. We find that poor performance is associated with voluntary and involuntary CEO turnover. We also find that exceptionally good performance is marginally associated with voluntary CEO turnover. For governance variables, more non-executive directors are associated with CEO turnover and CEO duality is marginally negatively related to CEO turnover. In addition, some of the governance variables are related to voluntary, but not involuntary, turnover. These results indicate that China's corporate governance is beginning to resemble the Anglo-American model as its market institutions come of age.