Abstract: Along with the rapid development of China's capital market and the decentralization of equity ownership in listed companies, the fight for control of these companies has become increasingly fierce. Against this background, the limited partnership agreement framework has become an important means for the founder teams to consolidate their control of the listed companies, and has frequently appeared in the ownership structure of the listed companies. Based on the data from Chinese listed companies on GEM from 2012 to 2021, this study explores the long-term impact of the limited partnership agreement framework on corporate development from the perspective of corporate innovation. The empirical results show that the limited partnership agreement framework is positively correlatedwith the number of corporate patent applications. Further research indicates that when the limited partnership enterprises in the limited partnership agreement framework are employee shareholding platforms, they have a stronger impact on the promotion of corporate innovation. The limited partnership agreement framework can enhance corporate innovation capacity throughthe two mechanisms of reducing enterprise agency costs and improving their risk-bearing capacity. Compared to the central and western regions, the positive impact of limited partnership agreement framework on corporate innovation is stronger in the eastern region. The above-mentioned conclusions not only confirm the positive role of the limited partnership agreement framework in consolidating the control rights in listed companies and promoting corporate innovation, but also provide important enlightenment for enterprises to design ownership rights, and for government to manage and improve the limited partnership systems.

Key words: limited partnership agreement, corporate innovation, agency cost, corporate risk taking, shareholding structure