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Directors′ and officers′ liability insurance and enterprise innovation
Zhou Donghua, Luo Shengzhe, Zhao Yujie
2022, 43(4):
201-208.
In 2012, the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China elevated enterprise innovation to a national development strategy, and since then, both enterprise innovation input and innovation output have been greatly enhanced. However, compared with developed economies, China′s enterprise innovation is still in the primary stage of innovation, and the innovation achievements are mostly focused on process and product innovation, and there is still room for development in the deep level of innovation such as functional innovation and chain innovation. In fact, enterprise innovation is not an overnight process, but a process that requires companies to make efforts to wrestle with external uncertainty, and this process is of high probability of failure, which lead to a lack of incentives for managers to invest in innovative projects. More realistically, if an innovation project fails, managers are likely to face a reduction in their future compensation, or even lawsuits from investors, as well as career disruptions. Therefore, it is critical in solving the problem of innovation by increasing management′s tolerance for the uncertainty of innovation activities, reducing the risk to their career and reputation, and motivating and maintaining their motivation to sustain innovation activities.
The relationship between manager incentives and the level of technological innovation in enterprises has always been a hot topic in academic research. The existing research mainly discusses the impact of corporate incentives on enterprise innovation from the perspectives of salary incentives, salary stickiness, equity incentives and employee stock ownership plans. However, there are few articles from the perspective of insurance incentives, and through the risk transfer mechanism of insurance, to study its impact on enterprise innovation. In order to make up for the lack of research, this paper intends to use the risk transfer mechanism of insurance as an entry point to explore the impact of insurance incentives on enterprise innovation.
In order to further answer the research questions, this paper explores the relationship between D&O liability insurance and enterprise innovation, and what kind of path does D&O liability insurance play in enterprise innovation. This paper puts forward the hypothesis that the purchase of D&O liability insurance is significantly positively related to the ability of enterprise innovation. Through multiple regression analysis, the data is analyzed and the hypothesis relationship is verified. The results show that the purchase of D&O liability insurance can improve the level of enterprise risk tolerance and promote the level of technological innovation.
The conclusions of this paper can be drawn as follows: Firstly, as a means of transferring enterprise risk, D&O liability insurance transfers the risk of liability that may be faced to the insurance company, thus providing the managers with a "disclaimer clause" and lifting the managers. The layer of worries about career risk makes it unnecessary to worry too much about personal financial losses caused by mistakes in decision-making, which helps to adjust the risk aversion characteristics of managers, so that investment in high-risk and uncertain projects is no longer excluded, more willing engage in high-risk innovation projects to effectively enhance the enterprise′s ability to innovate. This conclusion further provides a feasible means for improving the level of innovation of enterprises, and provides effective evidence for the promotion of D&O liability insurance in China.
Secondly, this paper finds that, on the one hand, the purchase of D&O liability insurance can protect directors, supervisors and senior executives from litigation accountability caused by negligence, and diversify the risk of claims faced by managers into corresponding insurance costs. Thereby, the enterprise′s risk-taking ability is enhanced, and the managers becomes relatively aggressive in investment, thereby enhancing its enthusiasm for innovation and making it more willing to carry out innovation activities. On the other hand, D&O liability insurance can place insurance enterprises in the position of external regulators, through effective external supervision of the enterprise, helps to reduce the degree of information asymmetry, ease the agency conflict between shareholders and managers, inhibit the opportunistic tendency of managers, and encourage managers to take risks and risk more. But more valuable projects, thereby increasing the level of enterprise risk-taking. This conclusion further clarifies the mechanism of the enterprise′s purchase of D&O liability insurance.
Finally, through a series of analysis of macro and micro characteristics heterogeneity of enterprises, this paper finds that the relationship between D&O liability insurance and enterprise innovation of state-owned listed enterprises, listed enterprises with low concentration of shares and non-two-in-one listed enterprises, is more significant. The relationship between D&O liability insurance and enterprise innovation of listed enterprises in high-tech industries and listed enterprises with high degree of marketization, is more significant.
This paper also has practical significance for enterprises to purchase D&O liability insurance to promote enterprise innovation. This paper finds that D&O liability insurance plays an important role in enterprise innovation, which provides a theoretical basis for promoting purchase D&O liability insurance in China, and provides a practical reason for listed enterprises to purchase D&O liability insurance. It also provides a theoretical basis for the implementation of the "Several Opinions of the State Council on Accelerating the Development of Modern Insurance Service Industry" promulgated in 2014. On the other hand, the results of this paper are also instructive to the adjustment of enterprise innovation policies. Given the impact of D&O liability insurance on enterprise innovation, local government should be committed to building a good liability insurance legislation, judicial, law enforcement and regulatory mechanisms to create an environment in which liability insurance is applied in enterprises to help enterprises better exert their innovative vitality, thus having a positive impact on China′s technological innovation and upgrading.
The enlightenments of this study are as follows: The possible contributions of this paper are as follows: (1) This paper enriches the research on the influencing factors of enterprise innovation. In recent years, the research on enterprise innovation has spanned the interdisciplinary fields of law, psychology and sociology, but little paper study it′s effect from the perspective of insurance, this paper explores the impact of D&O liability insurance on enterprise innovation from the perspective of D&O liability insurance, which further expands the relationship between external corporate governance mechanisms and enterprise innovation. (2) Revealing the mechanism of D&O liability insurance to promote enterprise innovation. Although scholars′ research also involved D&O liability insurance and enterprise innovation, it often did not study the mechanism of D&O liability insurance and innovation. This paper studies the impact mechanism of the purchase of the D&O liability insurance on the innovation of the enterprise from the perspective of the level of risk-taking, which enriches the corporate governance effect of the D&O liability insurance.
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