An Empirical Study On Relationship Among Ownership Structure, Government Subsidy And R&D Investment Of Listed Companies From SMEB

As an important part of the national innovation system, the innovation from thesmall and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is the key to realize the independentinnovation strategy in China because of its strong vitality, flexible operation mechanismand innovative awareness. As to the technical innovation as the main bodies of the SMEs,research and development (R&D) activities is a key point of independent innovationundoubtedly. Although there are many factors that can affect R&D investment, the recentliterature mostly concerned the internal corporate governance factors or external factorson the impact of R&D investment, because R&D investment with the characteristic ofhigh overflow and limited financial support in SMEs, it is not enough for relying solelyon internal governance or external power to enhance the strength of R&D investment.Therefore, based on the angle of the micro-level of enterprises and financial perspective,the paper studies the impact of R&D investment for SMEs from the core part of thecorporate governance (ownership structure) and the core part of the external environment(government subsidies).The study of the paper combined theory analysis with empirical research. Firstly,the former literatures on the impact of ownership structure and government subsidies onR&D investment were reviewed and appraised. Then relevant theories were used toanalyze the influence of ownership structure and government subsidies on R&Dinvestment from different property of actual controller in SMEs. In empirical studies, thepaper chose the research data of591listed companies from SMEs board in ShenzhenStock Exchange during2009to2011, which were classified to149state-ownedenterprises,442non state-owned enterprises. With descriptive statistics, correlationanalysis and linear regression, the paper drew the main conclusions as follows:(1)State-owned enterprises have input much more than non state-owned enterprises in R&Dinvestment;(2)As a whole, there is a distinct relation between the intensity of R&D and the companies’ largest shareholder shares proportion, the specific relation depends on theproperty of actual controller in SMEs;(3)As a whole, there is non-significant relationbetween equity balance degree and R&D investment intensity, but distinct in nonstate-owned enterprises;(4)The share proportion of senior managers and R&D investmentpresent the significant positive related relation, moreover, the significant in nonstate-owned enterprises is bigger;(5)The institutional investors’ shareholding is positivelycorrelated with R&D investment in non stated-owned enterprises, but non-significant instated-owned enterprises;(6)there is non-significant positive relation between venturecapital background and R&D investment in SMEs;(7)As a whole，there is a distinctpositive relation between the intensity of R&D and the government subsidies, but thespecific relation depends on the property of actual controller in SMEs. Then, the paperpresents corresponding countermeasures from the aspect of corporate governance andgovernment policy.The paper’s theoretical explanations and empirical analysis of the impact ofownership structure and government subsidies on R&D investment from differentproperty of actual controller in SMEs have important theoretical significance to furtherenrich the theories system of R&D investment and expand to improve the R&Dinvestment specifically from different property of actual controller in SMEs, and also toprovide decision references for improvement of R&D investment in SMEs.