Performance of China’s advertising agencies: a time series cross-sectional analysis

Although China has been the world’s second largest advertising market after the United States in terms of advertising spending since 2006, the performance of advertising agencies in China and the factors that contribute to this performance have been understudied. However, by incorporating the structure-conduct-performance model and agency theory into the integrative framework and conducting a time series cross-sectional analysis, we determine that the degree of concentration in the advertising agency industry and number of regulations in the advertising industry have had significant negative effects on the financial performance of agencies. In addition, agencies with mainly foreign capital have performed better than those with only Chinese capital. Agencies adopting strategies of initial public offering (IPOs) or engaging in name changes and mergers have performed better than those that have done nothing. Implications are also discussed.