Science Research Management

Science Research Management ›› 2021, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (9): 140-149.

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Management incentives, institutional investor shareholding, and corporate heterogeneous R&D investment

Ma Qingkui, Fan Mengchen   

  1. School of Economics and Management, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, Liaoning, China
  • Received:2018-04-09 Revised:2021-06-16 Online:2021-09-20 Published:2021-09-22

Abstract:      This paper aims to explore the impacts of management incentives on corporate R&D investment from the perspective of heterogeneity. Based on the review of relevant theories, this paper puts forward hypotheses about the impacts of equity incentive and compensation incentive on heterogeneous R&D investment and the moderating effect of institutional investor shareholding on the above relationships. Then, using the panel data of Chinese listed companies from 2007 to 2016, the two-stage least square method (2SLS) is adopted to conduct an empirical test. The results show that equity incentive has a significant promoting effect on both research investment and development investment. Compensation incentive has a positive effect on development investment, while the relationship between compensation incentive and research investment shows an inverted "U" shape. With the increase of the shareholding ratio, the supervisory role of institutional investors on corporate investment decision becomes stronger, which strengthens the impacts of equity incentive on research investment and development investment, and crowds out the impacts of compensation incentive. R&D investment can not only improve the current corporate performance, but also have positive effects on future corporate performances, and there is an obvious period difference between the impacts of research investment and development investment on future corporate performances.
    The possible theoretical contributions of this paper are as follows. First, based on the perspective of heterogeneity, the impact mechanisms of equity incentive and compensation incentive on research investment and development investment are explored, and conclusions such as the threshold effect of the impact of compensation incentive on research investment are obtained. This makes up for the lack of structural attention to R&D investment and expands the research on management incentives and corporate R&D investment. Second, the promoting or crowding-out effect of institutional investor shareholding (external governance mechanism) on management incentives (internal governance mechanism) is also considered, which makes up for the lack of previous studies that focused on the impact of a single governance mechanism on corporate R&D investment, brings the internal and external governance mechanisms into a unified analysis framework, and expands the research on corporate governance and corporate R&D investment.
    According to the above conclusions, the policy implications of this paper are as follows. First, companies should establish an equity incentive mechanism that adapts to innovation-driven development, appropriately improve the level of equity incentive, and expand the coverage of equity incentive. It is necessary to improve the level of equity incentive of top management through various methods such as equity awards and stock options, and include core R&D personnel and management personnel into the scope of equity incentive through employee shareholding plans. Thus, the level of R&D investment that can increase the long-term corporate value can be increased, and the problem of weak long-term performance growth caused by insufficient R&D investment can be solved. Second, companies should appropriately control the level of top management compensation, link compensation to reasonable consumption, design a top management incentive system that adapts to the long-term corporate development in combination with equity incentive, and avoid insufficient or excessive R&D investment caused by the risk attitude of top management. Third, in order to improve the performance of top management and enhance the long-term corporate value, the institutional investor shareholding ratio should be increased, and the external supervision mechanism of top management should be improved with the help of professional institutional investors. Fourth, corporate R&D investment not only positively affects current performance, but also has significant promoting effects on future performances. Companies should pay sufficient attention to the transition of R&D investment from the research stage to the development stage, so as to ensure the continuity of benefits.

Key words:  heterogeneous R&D investment, equity incentive, compensation incentive, institutional investor shareholding