The Impact of Corporate Ownership Structure on Financial Performance: Evidence from China's A-share Listed Companies

Abstract

As the ultimate measure of business performance, corporate financial performance is directly related to investor returns, creditor safety, and market resource allocation efficiency. Modern corporate governance theory suggests that equity structure fundamentally determines the quality of corporate decision-making and value creation ability by influencing the interest game between shareholders and management. However, the existing literature on the relationship between equity concentration and performance has not yet been resolved, and most studies have overlooked the nonlinear role of ownership balance mechanisms in the unique "same stock, same rights" context of the Chinese A-share market. Based on this, this research employs non-financial A-share listed companies from 2020 to 2025 as samples and empirically examines the impact of equity structure from two dimensions: ownership concentration and ownership balance. The research results indicate that there is no significant correlation between ownership concentration and corporate financial performance, while ownership balance is significantly negatively correlated with corporate financial performance, and this result remains valid after robustness tests. These findings enrich and expand the existing empirical research literature and provide important insights for improving equity structure and enhancing financial performance.