| As a very important concept in organizational theory, organization slack and innovation have received considerable attention in recent years, scholars research their relationship from different perspectives. But the previous studies, domestic and foreign scholars have paid more attention to research the relationships between slack resources and innovation performance, but no studies to examine the relationships between slack resources and R&D investment. As a very important part of the innovation process, the R&D investment has important impact on the improvement of enterprise innovation ability. Therefore, in the view of R&D investment, this study examines the relationship between R&D investment and slack. Meanwhile, the enterprise R&D investment decision making, is a dynamic process, influenced by the combination of internal and external factors. At present, our country is in economic transition period, the firm-government relationship as an important external condition, which will have an important impact on the enterprise’s decision-making, the relationship between R&D investment and slack may differ led by firm-government relationship.Therefore, this article will further analysis the moderating role of the firm-government relationship. The sample for this study include 287 listed companies which have five consecutive years(2007-2011) financial index data, using the Eviews6.0 analysis software to make regression analysis on panel data, the main conclusions are as follows:(1) The different slack resources have different relationship with R&D investment. Based on the viewpoint of slack resource recovery rate, through the financial indicators, slack resources can be divided into financial slack, absorbed slack and potential slack in this paper. The study found that: the financial slack has inverted u-shaped relationship with R&D investment; the absorbed slack has inverted u-shaped relationship R&D investment; potential slack has a negative impact on R&D investment. As the level of financial slack / absorbed slack increases from slight to moderate, R&D investment increases; as the level of financial slack / absorbed slack increases from moderate to great, R&D investment declines. Different from the above two kinds of slack, potential slack with the R&D investment is significantly negative.(2) firm-government relationship moderates the relationship between slack resources and R&D investment. Because of the existence of firm-government relationship, the inverted u-shaped relationship between financial slack/absorbed slack with R&D investment, and the negative relationship between potential slack with R&D investment will become more significant. In other words, when financial slack/absorbed slack at moderate level, the firm-government relationship will have a positive effect on their relationship with R&D investment; but when financial slack/absorbed slack at great level, the firm-government relationship will have a negative effect on their relationship with R&D investment; Different from the above two kinds of slack, whatever the degree of potential slack, the firm-government relationship will be negative to moderate its relationship with R&D investment.In theory, the result of this paper extend the field of the organization slack and innovation, enrich the related research achievements, promote the further development of enterprise technology innovation theory. In practice, the result of this paper will further enhance enterprise managers understanding of slack resources, broaden the supply way of enterprise innovation resources, and have a positive theoretical guidance to make decisions on the enterprise R&D investment. |
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