Institutional investors′ "distraction" and enterprises′ R&amp;D manipulation

WANG Pan; GUO Xiao-Dong; WU Xiao-Hui

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Science Research Management ›› 2023, Vol. 44 ›› Issue (8) : 109-118.

Institutional investors′ "distraction" and enterprises′ R&D manipulation

Wang Pan¹, Guo Xiaodong², Wu Xiaohui³

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Abstract

On the one hand, since R&D activities have the characteristics of high risk and income uncertainty, it is difficult for external users to directly acquire enterprises′ R&D information; and the R&D activities are highly professional, which prevents non-professionals from having good use of the enterprises′ R&D information and making accurate judgments about the rationality of R&D spending. Thus, the characteristics of R&D activities provide space for enterprises′ R&D manipulation. On the other hand, there is a policy of additional deduction of R&D expenses and accelerated depreciation of related assets in Chinese Tax Law, in accordance with which, when any companies are identified as high-tech enterprises, they can enjoy 15% income tax preference. In addition, these innovative companies can also enjoy different levels of subsidy and policy benefits given by local governments. Therefore, how to skillfully manipulate R&D expenditure to obtain more tax incentives and government subsidies has become a great temptation for listed companies. When the portfolios of institutional investors are impacted by extreme events, institutional investors will be prompted to pay more attention to the portfolios that have been hit, and thereby the attention of the companies that have not been hit will be reduced. This makes it possible for companies to take advantage of the distraction of institutional investors and weak supervision to adjust R&D spending by means of R&D manipulation, so that tax incentives will be enhanced, corporate tax costs reduced and higher government subsidies sought. But in fact, the R&D manipulation of listed companies is not conducive to corporate innovation.Therefore, this paper examined the effect of institutional investors distraction caused by different attention distribution in the portfolio companies on enterprises′ R&D manipulation. The study found that institutional investors′ "distraction" weakens their effects on listed companies to impose positive governance, reduces the corporate share price information content, and listed companies will more likely reduce their tax costs, and capture more government subsidies. Therefore, listed companies conduct R&D manipulation to meet the requirements of tax incentives and government subsidies on the level of enterprise R&D investment, thus leading to the reduction of enterprises′ R&D performance and market performance. In addition, the shareholding ratio of institutional investors and their shareholding proportion helps to suppress the intensification of institutional investors′ "distraction" to the enterprises′ R&D manipulation behavior.The research contributions of this paper are as follows: First, the research of this paper will help to expand the influence of different regulatory intensities caused by the attention distribution of institutional investors on corporate behavior. However, existing studies mainly take institutional investors′ field survey and shareholding ratio as the intensity of attention to listed companies, and they are unable to distinguish the difference in attention distribution of institutional investors in different portfolios. Secondly, the study of this paper will be helpful to enrich the literature on influencing factors of enterprises′ R&D manipulation, while existing studies have explored the influence of independent directors, tax incentives, financing constraints and other factors on enterprises′ R&D manipulation. However, few scholars have focused on the effects of the difference in attention distribution of institutional investors on corporate behavior. Finally, this paper used the degree of distraction of institutional investors as a means of identifying supervision, and verified its important impact on R&D manipulation, and it will not only provide new empirical evidence from Chinese capital market, but also provide a reference for government departments to strengthen the supervision of enterprises′ R&D manipulation behavior.The research of this paper has the following important implications: First of all, for listed companies, they should fully realize the adverse impact and potential unknown risks of R&D manipulation on enterprises, and reasonably increase the R&D investment of enterprises, from "quality" and "quantity" to improve the innovation ability and R&D performance of enterprises. Secondly, for institutional investors, they should give full play to their various advantages, adhere to the concept of long-term value investment, configure reasonably their attention in investment portfolios, and actively play the role of supervision and governance of listed companies in innovation activities, so as to strengthen the effective monitoring of the portfolio company. Finally, for the regulatory authorities, they should improve relevant innovation policies to increase the supervision penalties for the R&D manipulation behavior of listed companies, thus making up for the insufficient supervision of institutional investors′ "distraction".

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institutional investor / degree of "distraction" / enterprises′ R&D manipulation

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Wang Pan, Guo Xiaodong, Wu Xiaohui. Institutional investors′ "distraction" and enterprises′ R&D manipulation[J]. Science Research Management. 2023, 44(8): 109-118

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