| As the progress of the economic globalization,firms can no longer survive and develop with limited internal resources in global market.In global economy,the success or failure of firms is closely related to whether they have extensive social contacts and resources.Firms and their people have established stable social relationship networks through long-term repeated interactions with corporate stakeholders.In the social relationship networks,there are tremendous scarce resources that needed by firms.Through integrating into such networks,firms have acquired some kind of “network membership”,making them easily use the resources in these networks to serve their survival and development.Therefore,the resources in firms’ social relationship networks and firms’ mobilization ability to these resources are corporate social capital.Like human capital and financial capital,corporate social capital as a kind of capital can bring value to firms once it enters the production chain.Through close interaction with stakeholders such as governments,banks,industry associations,customers,suppliers,universities,research institutions and even competitors,firms can gain valuable information,opportunities and scarce resources,thus winning in the fierce competition.For example,obtaining tax incentives,government subsidies and other resources from governments,long and short-term loans from banks to ease financing constraints,getting access to technical support and technical know-how from universities or research institutions.As an informal mechanism,corporate social capital is of great importance for firms.However,the existing literature does not fully explore the nature of corporate social capital and its economic consequences,and the definition and dimension division of corporate social capital are still inconsistent in current literature.In existing research,scholars at home and abroad still have large differences in terms of the objective and scientific measurement of corporate social capital,thus empirical research results in existing literature can only solve some problems to a certain extent,and can not be used universally.Thus,more exploration needs to be conducted in this filed.The discussion on the economic consequences of corporate social capital is mainly limited to the theoretical and empirical exploration of the impact of corporate social capital on corporate innovation and performance in current literature.Little batches of literature document the relation between corporate social capital and firm growth.Therefore,this research mainly studies the growth of listed firms from the perspective of corporate social capital.Under the guidance of resource dependency theory,stakeholder theory,and corporate growth theory in management,empirical accounting,and econometrics,and through thorough exploration of existing literature on corporate social capital and firm growth,the research builds a theoretical model of the relationship between corporate social capital and firm growth with A-share listed firms in the transitional emerging market of China and under the special context of Chinese relationship culture as the research sample,during which such research methods as logistical analysis,normative research and empirical analysis are used.With in-depth and systematic analysis of the internal mechanism of corporate social capital and firm growth,the research provides some references and experiences for promoting the growth of listed firms in China.The research finds that:Firstly,political social capital,financial social capital and technical social capital of firms can promote the growth of listed firms through their “resource effect” and “information effect”.Specifically,high corporate political social capital is conducive to firms in obtaining key macro policy information in advance,making firms rationally plan and scientifically formulate corporate strategies accordingly.Besides,firms usually obtain government policy support such as tax incentives,face loose government controls which helps them overcome industry barriers,and even get access to special resources such as government subsidies as well.High financial social capital is conducive to reducing the cost of information search for both firms and banks,creating more opportunities for their transactions,and reducing their supervision and execution costs after the transactions as well.Moreover,both of them expect to be paid off by each other party in the future.Therefore,they usually will have more flexibility to concede to reduce negotiation costs because of the financial social capital.Corporate financial social capital is conducive to improving banks’ ability to identify corporate moral hazards,which may make banks relax the requirements for corporate accounting conservatism,more easily make loan approval decisions thereby improving bank credit decision efficiency.At same time,it will greatly increase corporate credit and relieves corporate financing constraints,and ultimately promotes corporate growth.If a firm has high technical social capital,it is expected that the firm has established a good social relationship network with universities and research institutes,which is conducive to the sharing of information and technology know-how,innovation knowledge and technologies of research institutes with firms,or even directly improves the technology absorption and application capabilities of corporate R&D staff,promoting corporate R&D efficiency and innovation ability,and ultimately facilitating firm growth.The technical social network can effectively promote the cooperation of production,teaching and research,and improve the utilization efficiency of knowledge and technology.In addition,firms can also obtain technological and management support through the technical social relationship network,thus enhancing their management and technological innovation.Secondly,different types of corporate social capital contain different resources and information,so their impact on corporate growth is different,and the acting mechanism is also different as well.With the scientific selection of measure index and data availability,this study validates the mediating effect of government subsidies in the relation of corporate political social capital and firm growth,the moderating effect of financing constraints in the relation of corporate financial social capital and firm growth,and the mediating effect of R&D in the relation of corporate technological social capital and firm growth.Higher corporate political social capital is beneficial for firms to obtain government subsidies.And government subsidies can directly and effectively make up for the funding gap of firms,improve corporate profitability and asset quality,help firms resist debt risks,promote operational growth,ease financing constraints,make up for inadequate investment,and enhance corporate risk-taking capabilities.In all,the “certification effect” and the “halo effect”of government subsidies help certify and disseminate corporate credibility attracting more investors for firms and ultimately promoting corporate growth.Higher financial social capital is conducive to alleviating corporate financing constrains.And financing constraints will affect firms’ competition in product market,impacting production efficiency,export capacity and corporate investment,which will adversely affect firm growth.Fortunately,corporate financial social capital helps alleviate corporate financing constraints,thereby promoting firm growth.Higher technical social capital is conducive to increasing R&D investment.And R&D investment,especially basic R&D investment,can promote production efficiency,enhance the innovation ability therefore firms’ efficiency,and reduce the risks of innovation,etc.,thus promoting corporate growth.Thirdly,all resources are of great value to corporate growth,and the richer and more diverse the resources a firm has,the more conducive it is to the sustainable and healthy growth of the firm.Although different dimensions of corporate social capital are different greatly,the different dimensions are actually interconnected,and they don’t exist completely independently.The existing literature suggests that the interaction of different dimensions of social capital has different impact on firm growth.There is a substitution effect between corporate political social capital and corporate financial social capital.When both are present,the impact of corporate financial social capital is greater,while the role of corporate political social capital is weakened,which suggests that the function of corporate financial social capital is possibly partially affected by corporate political social capital.When corporate political social capital and corporate technical social capital exist simultaneously,the significance of the both is reduced,and there is no substitution effect between the two.When corporate financial social capital and corporate technical social capital exist at the same time,the significance of both is reduced,and there is a complementary effect between the two.Fourthly,the impact of corporate social capital on firm growth is different in firms of of different owerships.The significant impact of corporate political social capital,financial social capital,and corporate technical social capital on corporate growth is mainly reflected in the state-owned enterprises.The possible reason may be that state-owned enterprises have easier access to various social resources,such as getting government subsidies or bank funds because of weaker financing constraints,etc.This research is innovative in the following aspects:Firstly,the classification of corporate social capital dimensions.Under the guidance of social network theory,stakeholder theory,contract theory and resource dependency theory,etc.,this study firstly classifies corporate social capital into political,commercial,social capital.Due to data availability and measurement feasibility of corporate commercial social capital,this study does not discuss its impact on firm growth.In view of the importance of innovation in corporate growth at present,the study identifies corporate technical social capital as an important dimension of corporate social capital,so as to better reveal the impact of different dimensions of corporate social capital on firm growth in current era.Besides,this study further explores the impact of the interaction of different dimensions of corporate social capital on firm growth,which is seldom discussed in current literature.Secondly,the study is innovative in the measurement of corporate social capital.Existing literature mostly equates entrepreneur social capital with corporate social capital,that is,directly equates the social capital of corporate legal representative or the founder of a family business with the social capital of the entire enterprise.In order to measure corporate social capital,existing literature usually designs measurement items in questionnaire,through which relevant data are collected,which will be used to measure corporate social capital.This measurement is reasonable in the literature which studys the small or medium-sized firms or a family business,and the research conclusions obtained to some degree are convincing.However,if the sample includes a more diverse businesses,such measurement of corporate social capital is inevitably defective,the conclusions obtained are not scientific and persuasive enough.Thus,this study uses the social capital of the board of directors who constitutes firms’ core layer,to measure the social capital of firms,which is more inclusive and persuasive compared with the measurement used in most current literature.Moreover,the study uses publicly available objective data in the financial statements of firms to count the measurement index in empirical research,which will alleviate the impact of many subjective factors on the research results.Thirdly,this study suggests that corporate growth is a long-term trend in which a firm can maintain a relatively stable growth trend in both “quantity” and “quality”.Different from existing literature which often uses 3-5 years of sample data to measure firm growth,this study uses a much longer window period to measure firm growth.More specifically,the study uses the data from 2007 to 2018 to calculate the main components of firm growth through principal components analysis,therefore,the empirical research results obtained are more explanatory.Fourthly,existing literature studies the relation between corporate social capital and firm growth using the data of middle and small-sized firms,family businesses,and high-tech firms.While this study takes all A-share listed firms in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets as the research sample,which are more extensive,therefore,the research conclusions drawn are more general and universal,and especially constitute good references for listed firms in China. |
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