Research On The Relationship Between R&D Investment And Corporate Performance

Globally,a new round of industrial revolution and a technological reform are constantly evolving.The organizational mode,shape and technological route of many industries have undergone unprecedented changes.Especially,Competition in the fields of artificial intelligence,gene editing,new energy,new materials has become increasingly fierce.As far as the domestic situation is concerned,China has focused on implementing the strategy of innovation-driven development,emphasizing the irreplaceable role of scientific and technological innovation in economic and social development.Moreover,new model of Chinese innovation is being formed and the development of new momentum centered on technological research and development is being accelerated.As a new force in the development of scientific and technological innovation in our country,the technological innovation ability of enterprises is the key to win the advantage in the new round of scientific and technological competition,which is also an important guarantee for the sustainable development of our economy.There are serious principal-agent problems in R&D activities due to the high risk and long periodicity of R&D activities,which restrict the implementation effect of R&D investment.Many articles have studied the relationship between R&D investment and corporate performance from the perspective of incentive mechanism,which believe that appropriate incentive measures for employees can alleviate the principal-agent problems in R&D activities,reduce agency costs and effectively enhance the output of R&D activities.However,the incentive mechanism studied in most literature is executive equity incentive and salary incentive.Few literature has studied the role of employee stock ownership plan(ESOP)in the relationship between R&D investment and corporate performance.In 2014,the "Guidelines on the Pilot Implementation of Employee Stock Ownership Plan by Listed Companies" issued by the Securities Regulatory Commission repromoted the implementation and development of ESOPs in China,and ESOPs have gradually become one of the main choices of the incentive mechanism of listed companies.The motivation objects of ESOP include not only senior managers but also non-senior managers,and both of them are the main participants in R&D activities.Therefore,it seems that the incentive of ESOP may affect the efficiency of transforming R&D activities into corporate performance.Thus,this paper puts ESOP,R&D investment and corporate performance into the same research framework,exploring the moderating effect of ESOP on the relationship between R&D investment and corporate performance.Based on the perspective of employee stock ownership incentive,this paper chooses the listed companies that issued ESOPs from 2014 to 2017 as samples,and uses Stata 15.0 and SPSS 21.0 software to carry out empirical analysis.Firstly,this paper explores and analyzes the relationship between R&D investment and current corporate performance,and the lagging effect of R&D investment is also analyzed.Then,hierarchical regression and grouping regression methods are used to test the moderating effect of ESOPs on the relationship between R&D investment and corporate performance.Finally,the factors affecting the moderating role of employee stock ownership plan is analyzed.The main empirical results of this paper are as follows: there is a negative correlation between R&D investment and current corporate performance,and the lag of R&D investment on firm performance is not significant.ESOPs can weaken the negative correlation between R&D investment and current corporate performance,and the moderating role of executive stock ownership in ESOPs is stronger than that of non-executive stock ownership.Both the stock source and the capital source of an ESOP will affect the moderating effect of the ESOP.In addition,the moderating effect of the ESOPs attaining shares from private placements is insignificant,and the moderating effect of the ESOPs purchasing shares from secondary market is significant.The ESOPs with employee's own capital can adjust the relationship between R&D investment and enterprise performance,and the ESOPs with the capital sources from financing pledge guarantee of controlling shareholders or donations have no significant moderating effect on the relationship between R&D investment and enterprise performance.Finally,according to the results of this study,this paper puts forward relevant policies and suggestions to improve the efficiency of enterprise R&D activities from the perspective of ESOPs,and points out the shortcomings of this study and future research directions.