Self-interest first? Limited partnership agreement structure and corporate resilience

Against the backdrop of increasing complexity in corporate ownership structures, this study examines the implications of limited partnership agreement structures (LP structures) in ownership control chains for corporate resilience. Using Chinese A-share listed firms from 2014 to 2023, we manually identify LP structures within ownership control chains and construct a fixed-effects model to empirically test their impact on corporate resilience. The results show that LP structures significantly improve corporate resilience. This finding remains robust after accounting for potential endogeneity and conducting a series of robustness checks. Mechanism analyses suggest that financial resource availability and innovation investment serve as two channels through which LP structures enhance corporate resilience. Heterogeneity analyses further show that this positive effect is stronger in firms with higher internal control quality and a more favourable external information environment. Additional analysis across different types of LP structures indicates that private equity fund-type LPs weaken the marginal effect of LP structures on corporate resilience. By examining LP structures as control-enhancing arrangements, this study extends the corporate governance literature and documents their resilience implications in an emerging capital market.