| Innovation is the power source for family firms to maintain sustainable development and achieve longevity.During the 14 th Five-Year Plan period,the Party and the State have raised the importance of innovation to a whole new level.Among them,“strengthening the status of enterprises as the main body of innovation and encouraging them to invest more in R&D” is regarded as an important deployment to promote the strategy of an innovative country.In this context,what is the relationship between family firms and innovation? The question of how to motivate family firms to actively engage in R&D is particularly important.However,the role of family firms in R&D has been controversial so far.In recent years,many scholars have begun to call for research on family firm innovation to focus on the heterogeneity within the family system rather than simply comparing family firms with non-family firms.Kinship is the natural bond that connects family members,and deconstructing different types of kinship is the key to understanding heterogeneity within family business groups.As one of the most important and intimate kinship relationships,the influence of marital relationship in the development of family firms is becoming more and more prominent.Thus,this paper introduces the marital relationship into the research framework of family firm innovation and attempts to analyze the impact of different dimensions of the attributes of the couple partner on the R&D investment of family firms using data of Chinese family listed companies from 2008 to 2020.Specifically,the following research elements are included.The first study aims to investigate the effect of the marital match of the actual controller on the R&D investment of family firms.This study analyzes the relationship between the couple’s properly matched social capital and the corporate R&D investment based on the homogeneous matching theory and the gradient matching theory,and explores the moderating effect of market attention.The results show that:(1)the properly matched social capital,social status,and social relationship of the couple will inhibit R&D investment of the family firm,supporting the hypothesis of gradient matching.(2)The innovation-inhibiting effect of “family combo” is heterogeneous,and the effect is more obvious in regions with poorer marriage culture and weaker familism culture.In addition,the mechanism analysis shows that the“family combo” inhibits the R&D investment of family firms by increasing the agency conflict between spouses.(3)Market attention affects the innovation-inhibiting effect of “family combo”,i.e.,the higher the analyst attention and media attention,the weaker the negative effect of the properly matched social capital,social status and social relationship on R&D investment.The second study aims to reveal the effect of the geographical location characteristics of the marriages of the firm’s actual controllers on the R&D investment of family firms.Based on the couple’s heterogeneous resources and cultural perceptions,this study analyzes the relationship between immigrant marriage and corporate R&D investment from resource-based view and imprinting theory,and also explores the moderating effect of external environmental uncertainty.The results find that:(1)immigrant marriage is conducive to increasing the R&D investment in family firms,and the greater the geographical distance of immigrant marriage and the heterogeneity of familism,the greater its contribution to corporate R&D investment.(2)The innovation-promoting effect of immigrant marriage shows heterogeneous effect,and the positive effect of immigrant marriage is more obvious in the sample with wide spatial layout of firms and low accessibility.In addition,the mechanism analysis indicates that immigrant marriage mainly promotes the level of R&D investment in family firms by enriching the resource heterogeneity at the executive and firm organization levels.(3)Environmental uncertainty constrains the innovationpromoting effect of immigrant marriage,i.e.,the higher the degree of market uncertainty,the weaker the positive effect of immigrant marriage,the geographical distance and the heterogeneity of familyism on firms’ R&D investment;the higher the degree of policy uncertainty,the weaker the positive effect of immigrant marriage and its geographical distance on firms’ R&D investment.The third study aims to clarify the effect of the power allocation between the spouses on the R&D investment of the family firm.Based on the couple’s allocation of management and ownership rights,this study analyzes the relationship between spousal co-governance and corporate R&D investment from the perspective of marriage contract and contract theory,and also explores the moderating effect of family wealth distress.The results show that:(1)the co-governance,including joint shareholding,joint tenure,and joint shareholding and tenure are conducive to improving the level of R&D investment in family firms.(2)The innovation-promoting effect of cogovernance shows heterogeneous characteristics,and the positive effect is more obvious in the sample with long marriage duration and high level of regional trust.In addition,the mechanism analysis indicates that co-governance mainly promotes the level of R&D investment in family firms by increasing long-term orientation.(3)Family wealth distress affects the innovation-promoting effect of co-governance,i.e.,the higher the degree of current family wealth distress,the stronger the innovationpromoting effect of joint shareholding on corporate R&D investment,but the weaker the innovation-promoting effect of joint tenure,joint shareholding and tenure on corporate R&D investment.The higher the expected degree of family wealth distress,the stronger the innovation-promoting effect of joint ownership,joint tenure,and joint ownership and tenure on R&D investment.In addition,there is a difference in the effect of “family combo” and immigrant marriage on the R&D investment of firms in the cogovernance and non-co-governance samples.Based on the above three studies,this paper further analyzes the economic consequences of the facilitative or inhibitory effects of marital partners’ marital match,marital location attributes,and their intra-firm power allocation on firm’s R&D investment.It is found that marital match weakens the contribution of R&D investment to the firm performance,while both immigrant marriage and co-governance model significantly enhance the contribution of R&D investment to the firm performance.This suggests that different dimensions of the characteristics of the couple partners are mapped to the economic consequences of the firm,either as a stimulus or as a constraint on the relationship between R&D investment and the firm performance.The theoretical contributions of this paper are mainly reflected in the following aspects: First,based on the perspective of intra-group heterogeneity of family firms,this study delves into different kinship relationships within family firms and examines the role of marital relationship as a key perspective to influence R&D innovation in family firms,which expands and enriches the research in the field of family firm innovation.Second,this paper draws on the research of sociology and marriage and family studies to incorporate the concepts of marital matching and geographic location characteristics of marriage into the research framework of innovation in family firms,and comprehensively examines the effects of three dimensions of the corporate actual controllers’ properly matched social capital,immigrant marriage,and co-governance on corporate R&D investment,which expands the conceptual connotation and research perspective of marital relationship.Third,this paper takes the unique marriage contract as the key point to find the essential differences between spousal co-governance and other family governance models,revealing its inner logic to stimulate corporate innovation.Fourth,based on the interaction between the family system and the firm system,the dynamic relationship between marital relationship and R&D innovation is argued.This verifies the association between family system and firm system,enriches the boundary factors of R&D innovation in family firms,and has important theoretical implications for a deeper understanding of the relationship between marital relationship and R&D innovation in family firms.Fifth,the relationship between marital relationship and R&D innovation in family firms is enriched by combining the attributes of Chinese institutions and culture,such as the familism and the tradition of family combo,etc.This has important theoretical implications for extending the existing research results in Western countries based on the Chinese context and promoting the in-depth development of family business research. |
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