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Generational differences and innovation investment decision in family firms
Xu Changxin, Zhao Mengqiong
2019, 40(12):
282-291.
At present, with the development of science and technology changing with each passing day, the product update speed is getting faster and faster, the difference of products is getting smaller and smaller and the profit space is getting narrower and narrower. The key resources that limit the development of enterprises is not only capital, but also the technological innovation capabilities whose importance is growing. However, the family enterprises, which occupy most of the traditional manufacturing industry in China, are generally lack of innovation investment. At the same time, with the first generation of family founders stepping into retirement age, more and more family businesses are facing the challenge of intergenerational inheritance. How does the family control, the mainstream private enterprise governance form, affect the strategic direction of enterprise innovation? How the intergenerational inheritance of the family influences the innovation investment decision of the enterprise? These problems have gradually become the focus of research in related fields at home and abroad.However, there is no unified conclusion on the research of family business innovation investment behavior. The research based on stewardship theory and principal-agent theory often believes that family businesses have the patient capital to provide unique resources such as trust and emotional support because of the high degree of ownership and management of family businesses, which is conducive to family business to make long-term oriented investment decisions, so family business will pay more attention to innovation investment than non-family business. On the other hand, the related research based on socioemotional wealth theory believes that family businesses are often reluctant to bear the risk of falling under the control of foreigners and foreign capital dependence due to long-term investment, so family businesses often choose to reduce innovation investment activities and innovation inputs compared to non-family businesses. Although the above two views give theoretical explanations to the innovation investment behavior of family business, the latest theoretical development and research still indicate that the above research has insufficient discussion on the heterogeneity of family business itself and insufficient attention to the importance of knowledge resources.According to the existing literature, based on the willingness and ability view, the resource-based view, and the perspective of “willingness - ability -resource”, the study proposes the assumption that different types of family business innovation tendencies will be different. In other words, the difference between the family manager’s shareholding structure (family control ability) and the different intergenerational owner’s goals (family control willingness) will lead to different innovation orientations, and the intellectual resources play a regulatory role in this. This study selects the data of 1200 A-share listed family enterprises in China from 2008 to 2017, uses the size of the shares owned by the first and second generation family as an explanatory variable to reflect the heterogeneity of the family business itself, measures the innovation investment intensity of enterprises by the proportion of research investment income and operating income, and conducts an empirical test of this hypothesis by classic regression model.The result shows that, firstly, the differences of willingness and control ability between generations of family business have an impact on the decision-making of innovation investment. Based on the non-economic goal of maintaining family control, the first generation is more interested in restraining enterprise innovation investment, so the lower the intensity of innovation investment with the higher degree of ownership of entrepreneurship. The second generation is more inclined to pursue the economic goal to prove its self-worth, so the higher the ownership level of the second generation is, the higher the intensity of enterprise innovation investment is. Secondly, knowledge-based resources play a regulatory role in the relationship between intergenerational differences in family businesses and the intensity of corporate innovation investment. Although the first generation has a lower willingness to invest in innovation, the benefits of innovative investment will become significant if the enterprise’s own knowledge resources are rich, the risk of enterprise innovation is small, and there is no need for external experts to cause the control of the enterprise to fall. With the protection of non-economic goals, the pursuit of economic goals will become more prominent, the attitude towards innovative investment may change, and the willingness to increase investment in innovation becomes more significant. For the second generation, the accumulation of original knowledge resources reduces the cost of innovation, makes the economic benefits of innovation greater, and is more in line with the willingness to pursue their own economic goals, and may further increase investment in innovation. In conclusion，intellectual resources play a negative role in the relationship between the ownership of the first generation and the intensity of innovation investment, and play a positive role in the relationship between the ownership of the second generation and the intensity of innovation investment.The conclusions of the study have important theoretical and practical significance for further exploring the innovative investment decisions of family businesses. Firstly, the research focuses on the differences in family business succession, which makes up for the lack of discussion on the heterogeneity of family business in the past. It is found that the combination of family business economic and non-economic goals is highly variable, the discretionary power of the controllers among enterprises is different, and the strategic behavior is greatly different in different types of family enterprises. Secondly, the research brings knowledge resources into the research, taking into account the regulatory effect of knowledge capital accumulation between different innovation investment choices and ownership holdings of different types of family enterprises, makes up for the lack of consideration of knowledge resources in the past, and finds the important significance of knowledge resources for innovation decision-making of family enterprises. Thirdly, the research conclusions also provide some inspiration for family business practices. Successful completion of the intergenerational transfer of enterprises is the basis for family businesses to continue their wealth and maintain their vitality. Studying the intergenerational heterogeneity of family businesses on their innovative decision-making will help enterprises to more rationally consider the strategic choices in the process of intergenerational inheritance, adopt a more rationalized innovation strategy and take rational measures based on understanding the mechanism of change. Finally, family business is an important component of the structure of China’s market economy. The study on the inheritance and development of family business is also of great significance to promote the stable development of China’s economy.
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