Corporate social network, ownership structure, and corporate financing constraints: Evidence from China

Based on the stakeholder theory, we constructed a corporate social network for all publicly listed Chinese A-share enterprises on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges for 2010–2017. The empirical results show that there is a negative relationship between the focal positions of the corporate social network and financing constraints. Specifically, if an enterprise is located in a more central position or occupies more structural hole positions in the network, it has fewer financing constraints. Ownership structure plays a moderating role in this relationship. The results remain robust to various robustness checks and support the information access hypothesis of social networks.