Data Mining in the Relation between Ownership Structure and Firm Performance: A Structural Equation Model Analysis of Chinese Public Companies in Manufacturing Industry

Data mining, as an important skill which can discover the hidden patterns of data from a large quantity of data by precise mathematical means, can be used for decision making in corporate governance. This paper, with a structural equation model analysis, studies the relation between ownership structure and firm performance. Focusing on the public companies in Chinese manufacturing, ownership structure has no significant effect on firm performance, which shows controversy with previous studies. It is suggested that the small number of internal ownership can not make the ownership motivation effect happen on managers. It can be proposed that Chinese manufacturing companies should improve ownership structure, especially the extent of internal ownership, to resolve the problem of agency and principals and get high firm performance.