In this paper, we construct a content analysis structure to explore whether corporate governance information in voluntary disclosures can predict management expenses in the next term. Employing the site visit information disclosure of firms listed on the Chinese A-share market from 2012 to 2021, we find that corporate governance information disclosure is motivated by ownership concentration,and that corporate governance information can predict management expenses and comprises incremental information, indicating that the content analysis we construct is valuable and the disclosure of corporate governance information can mitigate the agency problems.There is a difference between state-owned listed firms and nonstate-owned listed firms.

Distinct from existing studies on general institutional investors and institutional investor cliques, this study examines how common institutional owners, who simultaneously hold more than 5% equity blocks in at least two publicly traded firms within the same industry, influence firms’ bad mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in China. Contrary to the “conspiracy tort” view, according to which common institutional owners are more likely to vote for bad M&A deals to pursue internalized gains from industry portfolios (Antón et al., 2022b), our results strongly support the “synergy governance” view, according to which common institutional owners perform more actively and effectively in monitoring against bad M&As and improving M&A quality. There is further evidence that common institutional owners with greater peer linkages and industry power and longer-term holdings are more likely to oppose deals with negative acquirer returns. Finally, we find that the effect of common institutional ownership on M&As is more pronounced among firms with stronger earnings management, moderate stock return synchronicity, less management shareholding and higher management expenses. The results are consistent with the “synergy governance” hypothesis whereby common institutional owners are able to leverage their advantages of industry information and supervisory experience to improve the information environment and corporate governance of the firms they hold. Overall, in China’s market, common institutional owners play an active external governance role and effectively improve M&A quality.