Internal Control And Enterprise R&D Efficiency

General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out in the party’s 19th congress report that promoting high-quality economic development requires quality changes,efficiency changes and power changes to accelerate the construction of an innovative country.Under this background,the government and enterprises are increasing their investment in scientific and technological innovation,and the R&D funds are increasing year by year.However,whether the increasing R&D investment can bring the same proportion of output growth,that is,whether the R&D efficiency of enterprises can be guaranteed,is a question worth pondering.Therefore,it is particularly important to study the influencing factors of enterprise research and development efficiency.The R&D activities of enterprises are characterized by large capital investment,long R&D cycle,strong professional skills and high uncertainty of the process,which makes them have higher risks.As an important institutional arrangement,internal control plays an important role in preventing enterprise risks,realizing the effective allocation of enterprise resources and improving enterprise efficiency.The Guidelines for Supporting Enterprise Internal Control specifically mention the control methods of internal control in the whole process of enterprise R&D activities.The above-mentioned characteristics of R&D activities also make it possible for the management to use R&D activities for earnings management.The internal control of an enterprise can effectively supervise the management by establishing a power restriction mechanism,completely recording the decision-making process,and timely and accurately transmitting information,thus inhibiting its earnings management behavior to a certain extent.However,few scholars have studied the existence of this intermediary transmission mechanism between internal control and R&D efficiency.Therefore,this paper considers internal control,earnings management and R&D efficiency in the same logical chain,and studies different ways of earnings management.Based on previous research results,this paper uses principal-agent theory and information asymmetry theory to analyze the relationship between internal control,earnings management and R&D efficiency.On this basis,all A-share listed companies in China are taken as research samples,reasonable indicators are selected to measure relevant variables,SFA model is used to estimate R&D efficiency of listed companies,and then descriptive statistical analysis,correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis are constructed to explore the relationship between internal control and R&D efficiency of enterprises.On this basis,the stepwise regression method is used to test the intermediary transmission effect between internal control and R&D efficiency.Furthermore,Sobel test is used to test the robustness of the mediating effect of earnings management and a consistent conclusion is obtained.The results show that:firstly,the quality of internal control has a positive impact on the R&D efficiency.High-quality internal control can promote the improvement of R&D efficiency of enterprises.Secondly,the degree of accrual earnings management and the degree of real earnings management both have some mediating effects in the quality of internal control and the R&D efficiency of enterprises,and some mediating effects of real earnings management are stronger.High quality of internal control inhibits the accrual earnings management and the real earnings management of enterprises,and the reduction of these two kinds of earnings management degrees will improve the R&D efficiency of enterprises to a certain extent.However,the intermediary effect of classified transfer earnings management does not exist,and there is no significant relationship between the internal control of enterprises and the degree of classified transfer earnings management,and between the degree of classified transfer earnings management and the R&D efficiency of enterprises.On this basis,this paper puts forward several policy suggestions:firstly,on the basis of establishing and perfecting its internal control system,enterprises should strengthen the internal control of research and development activities and improve the implementation effect of internal control,form effective constraints on management’s earnings manipulation behavior,and improve the research and development efficiency of enterprises.Secondly,the government and relevant departments should act as"advocates" and "supervisors" to effectively supervise the perfection,efficiency and effectiveness of the enterprise’s internal control system,so that the enterprise’s internal control system can truly play its role in improving research and development efficiency,promoting efficiency change and promoting high-quality economic development.