| Innovation is the core driving force driving the transformation of the national economy,promoting the upgrading of the industrial structure and enhancing the competitive advantage of enterprises.However,unlike other conventional investment activities,innovation is a complex multi-stage system process,and all links of innovation are closely linked,requiring the joint efforts of employees at all levels and departments.As the main body of innovation decision-making and implementation,senior executives and core employees of enterprises are indispensable in innovation activities.As an important incentive tool,equity incentive is conducive to the convergence of interests between employees and enterprises,and encourages employees to participate in innovation activities independently to improve enterprise value.At the same time,the issue of salary gap has become a hot research topic in the field of corporate governance.However,the current research does not take into account the relative gap of equity incentive and ignores the rationality of the arrangement of the grant strength of incentive objects at different levels.In addition,according to the enterprise life cycle theory,the contract setting of the equity incentive plan should be arranged according to the change of the enterprise development stage.However,most of the previous studies are based on the static perspective,without considering the difference in the time dimension of the enterprise life cycle.This paper selects the listed companies that implemented equity incentives from2006 to 2020 as a sample,examines the impact and mechanism of the equity incentive gap between executives and core employees on innovation output,and further examines the incentive gap in the different development of enterprises.The research of this paper shows that:(1)The equity incentive gap will significantly inhibit the innovation output of enterprises;(2)The equity incentive gap will reduce the employee efforts,destruction of teamwork and exacerbation of employee turnover inhibit the innovation output of enterprises;(3)The innovation inhibiting effect of the equity incentive gap gradually increases with the development of the enterprise life cycle,that is,in the growth period is the weakest,the maturity period is stronger,and the recession period is the strongest;(4)Further testing found that the equity incentive gap significantly reduced the citation value,application value and market value.The research contributions of this paper are mainly reflected in the following four aspects: First,it broadens the relevant research on the setting of equity incentive contracts from the perspective of salary gap.At present,the research on incentive strength is still only carried out from the perspective of absolute award level,and does not pay attention to the effect of the relative incentive gap between executives and core employees.This paper introduces the issue of salary gap into the research scope of equity incentive,examines how the incentive gap will affect the innovation output of enterprises,and expands the relevant research on the setting of equity incentive contracts from the perspective of salary gap.Secondly,it broadens the relevant research on the compensation gap from the perspective of equity incentive.At present,the perspective of research on salary gap has still focused on monetary compensation.As a kind of equity compensation,the academia has not paid enough attention to the impact of the distribution of incentive shares between executives and core employees.This paper examines the innovative impact effect and mechanism of relative incentive strength,and expands the relevant research on the compensation gap from the perspective of equity incentive.Thirdly,it broadens the relevant research of enterprise life cycle from the perspective of the heterogeneity of incentive gap effect.Enterprises in a specific development stage have different resource conditions and innovation needs,and the goals of equity incentives and the economic consequences of contract terms are also different.However,few studies have included the issue of equity incentive contract setting into the research field of enterprise life cycle.This paper finds that in different stages of enterprise development,the influence of equity incentive gap on innovation will change dynamically,which has enriched the relevant research of enterprise life cycle.Fourth,under the background of the gradual normalization of equity incentives,this paper studies the influence of equity incentive gap on innovation output,the mode of action and the life cycle heterogeneity.It not only has important reference significance for listed enterprises to set the terms of equity incentive contract according to their organizational characteristics,resource conditions and innovation objectives in the development stage,but also provides empirical evidence and theoretical reference for policy makers and supervisory managers to further formulate and improve the relevant policies,regulations and supervision methods of equity incentive. |
