Research On The Influence Of Cash Dividend Policy On Enterprise R&D Innovation Performance

Over the past two decades,China's R&D investment has been increasing year by year,and it has continuously achieved innovative results.But compared with the developed countries such as the United States,there is still a clear gap.From the "ZTE incident" that occurred in 2017,we can see that for enterprises,especially innovative enterprises,independent R&D capability is the most important thing,and it is the lifeblood of the survival and development of enterprises.Continuous R&D innovation can improve the market competitiveness of products and help enterprises implement low-cost and differentiated market competition strategy.At the same time,relying on knowledge accumulation and technological innovation,R&D also helps enterprises to achieve scale expansion,transformation and upgrading.Therefore,enterprises must strive to transform R&D innovation results,improve patent output,and then improve R&D efficiency.At the enterprise level,cash dividend distribution and R&D innovation are important aspects of internal business investment activities.Due to the existence of asymmetric information,inconsistent interests and other factors,there are agency problems between controlling shareholders and minority shareholders,shareholders and management,shareholders and creditors.Agency cost will reduce the level of R&D innovation performance.In view of the fact that the stock ownership concentration of listed enterprises in China is high,the focus of relevant research begins to shift from the agency problem between management and shareholders to the agency problem between controlling shareholders and minority shareholders.This paper focuses on the agency problem between controlling shareholders and minority shareholders.According to the theory of dividend agency,the distribution of cash dividend will reduce the possibility of controlling shareholders encroaching on the interests of minority shareholders,and can effectively reduce the agency cost.This will indirectly improve the level of R&D innovation performance.So this paper expects that the cash dividend policy has a significant positive impact on R&D innovation performance of enterprises.For a long time,China's listed enterprises are unwilling to share out dividends,and the phenomenon of low dividends is serious,and the consciousness of active return shareholders is not strong.Considering the importance of cash dividends and unoptimistic dividend situation of listed enterprises in our country,the regulatory authorities have issued a series of regulatory measures since 2008 to strengthen the supervision of cash dividend policies of listed enterprises.And the enterprise refinancing qualification and its cash dividend level were linked.In the past,scholars referred to these policies as "semi-compulsory dividend policy." Therefore,considering the background of China's semi-compulsory dividend policy,it is expected that the level of cash dividend has a significant impact on R&D innovation performance.From two dimensions of R&D output and R&D efficiency,this paper selects Chinese listed enterprises from 2009 to 2016 as a sample and makes an empirical study on the relationship between cash dividend policy and R&D innovation performance by using OLS and TOBIT models.The intermediary effect model of "cash dividend policy-agency cost-R&D innovation performance" is constructed,and the specific influence path is analyzed.Through the research,the following conclusions are drawn:(1)the cash dividend level of listed enterprises has a significant positive impact on R&D output and R&D efficiency;(2)the cash dividend policy indirectly promotes R&D innovation performance by restraining agency costs;(3)the cash dividend policy of the larger enterprises and enterprises with higher separation of two rights have a more significant positive impact on R&D innovation performance.