| 管理者权力与企业研发投入强度：法律环境的抑制效应 |
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| 引用本文： | 柯东昌,李连华.管理者权力与企业研发投入强度：法律环境的抑制效应[J].科研管理,2006,41(1):244-253. |
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| 作者姓名： | 柯东昌 李连华 |
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| 作者单位： | 浙江财经大学 会计学院，浙江 杭州310018 |
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| 摘 要： | 本文采用社会心理学理论对管理者权力与企业创新投入之间的内在因果关系进行深入、全面的剖析，并在此基础上利用我国中小板和创业板上市公司年报中披露R&D投入金额的经验数据，构建多元线性回归模型进行实证研究和多项稳健测试。其实证研究结果一致表明，管理者权力对企业R&D投入强度有显著的促进作用；并且，本文进一步在理论上探究了企业所处地区的法律环境能够产生的抑制效应，同时引入交互项和分组检验的方法分别进行实证研究，其结果均一致地表明法律环境的优良程度对管理者权力所产生的研发投入驱动作用起到了显著的抑制影响。
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| 收稿时间： | 2018-01-30 |
Managerial power and R&D investment intensity of enterprise: The inhibitory effect of legal environment |
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| Ke Dongchang,Li Lianhua.Managerial power and R&D investment intensity of enterprise: The inhibitory effect of legal environment[J].Science Research Management,2006,41(1):244-253. |
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| Authors: | Ke Dongchang Li Lianhua |
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| Institution: | School of Accounting, Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics, Hangzhou 310018, Zhejiang, China |
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| Abstract: | By means of review and summary of research literature about the driving factors of corporate R&D investment, it is found that the influence factors of R&D investment are very abundant, including executive characteristics (tenure, age, educational background and compensation incentive, etc.), corporate governance characteristics, firm size, ownership structure, corporate diversification, enterprise age, enterprise profit and cash flow, capital intensity, vertical mergers and acquisitions, product market competition, public policy, enterprise external environment and other factors. However, few literatures study the impact of enterprise innovation investment from the perspective of manager power. Although a large number of empirical studies have examined the impact of managerial power on organizational decision-making and performance, its impact on the formation of enterprise innovation is still unclear. Neither the corporate governance literature nor the organizational innovation literature specifically constructs a systematic framework of whether and how managerial power affects organizational innovation activities. Top managers play a particularly important role in top group organizations and in strategic decision-making. Therefore, the first purpose of this paper is to reveal the intrinsic relationship between the power of managers and the intensity of R&D investment. Understanding how the institutional environment, including the legal environment, affects the governance structure is the basis for corporate governance research. Corporate governance mechanisms can hardly work well without a good governance environment. Such an environment depends on both the mechanisms of the company itself and the legal environment of the region in which an organisation operates e.g., the laws, cultures and practices of the region, as well as the institutions enforcing the law. This leads to our second research objective, whether regional legal environments have moderation effect on the managerial power and R&D investment. Traditional agency theory holds that there is a potential divergence of interests when the ownership and control of the business are separated. It suggests that the manager will tend to avoid risk more than the shareholders in order to cover their non-distributable human capital. However, traditional agency theory has limited capacity to explain complex phenomena, such as the relationship between CEO power and risk taking. It also does not consider the effect of power on each manager′s psychological process when explaining the manager′s actions in favor of his own interests. Daily et al. (2003) argue that multi-theoretical approaches are more appropriate in interpreting organizational processes. Recent social psychology research has confirmed that everyone′s power is transformed into a basic psychological process. Social psychologists believe that two behavioral systems of neurobiology (including behavioral approach and inhibition systems) serve as a means to explain different types of behavior. These two systems have different effects on each person′s motivations, emotions, and behaviors, depending on which system is at work. Either the behavioral approach system or the behavioral inhibition system is activated, it will make a difference to the perception of each individual′s risk taking, and then reflects on the power utility function of the individual. For example, an individual′s attention is focused on positive outcomes, such as potential future rewards when the behavioral approach system is launched. Conversely, the individual will focus on avoiding negative results when the behavioral inhibition system is activated.Numerous studies have shown that managers directly influence their organizational outcomes in a number of important ways. The difference in outcomes of firms is directly derived from the different strategic choices made by their managers, as managers have different career experiences, training skills and networks. Senior management such as CEOs have unique influences on business processes and structures, which largely determines the likelihood of business success. CEOs have a lot of discretionary powers over corporate strategic choices and decision making. For example, Golden and Zajac (2001) found that when a CEO has the same power as a board of directors, it is difficult for the board to play a role in corporate strategy change. Eisenhardt and Bourgeois (1988) and Finkelstein (1992) suggest that when managers have strong power, their preference for corporate strategy are revealed.Essentially, the CEO′s cognitive bias toward decision-making risk assessment increases when the sense of power triggers the CEO′s approach behavior system. The cognitive bias generated by this psychological process will lead the CEO to ignore the negative consequences of risk decision-making, and only consider the positive results of the rising potential. Finkelstein et al. (2009) believes agency theory is about power. According to the agency theory, in the absence of appropriate governance mechanisms, self-interested managers may not make decisions that maximize the value of the company. CEOs are likely to accumulate power and use power to enhance their own interests. The theory of behavioral approach and inhibition suggests that CEO′s efforts to achieve benefits will be driven by behavioral approach system, which will lead them to pay more attention to the potential benefits of risky decision-making and neglect the negative consequences. It means that the CEO with greater power will activate the approach system, thereby increasing the CEO′s optimism about the likelihood of positive outcomes associated with the R&D investment despite the higher related risk.Based on the above theoretical analysis, using the sample of listed companies of the SME and GEM Boards of China whose annual reporting disclosed the amount R&D investments from China, the paper examines the effect of managerial power on the intensity of company R&D investment by establishing multiple linear regression model, and then conducts a number of robust tests. The empirical study results consistently suggest that managerial power has a positive and remarkable effect on the investment intensity of enterprise R&D. This strongly supports the first hypothesis proposed in this paper. Further, because the magnitude of managerial power is essentially a corporate governance problem, corporate governance mechanisms can hardly work without a good governance environment. Corporate governance depends on both the mechanism of the enterprise itself and the legal environment of the region, which includes the laws, cultures and practices of the region, as well as the institutions enforcing the law. Therefore, this paper further elaborates on the mediator effect that the legal environment of enterprises can produce, that is, the legal environment will attenuate the promotion effect of enterprise managers on R&D investment. On the basis, this paper further adopts the method of introducing interaction terms and grouping test to conduct empirical studies respectively. The results suggest that the perfection of legal environment has a remarkable attenuating effect on the driving effect of R&D investment generated by managerial power. Therefore, the second hypothesis proposed in this paper has also been supported.This article has certain academic contribution to the research on corporate governance and enterprise innovation investment. Specifically, the research in this paper helps to reveal the internal mechanism of how the power of enterprise managers affects enterprise innovation behavior, and conducts an empirical study. Therefore, this study enriches the theoretical literature on managerial power and enterprise innovation investment. Secondly, this paper further explores theoretically and empirically finds that the legal environment in which enterprises are located can attenuate the promotion role of managerial power on enterprise R&D investment, thus expanding the theoretical research on the relationship between the legal environment, managerial power and enterprise innovation investment. The empirical results of this paper also have important policy implications. According to the empirical research conclusion of this paper, there is a significant and positive correlation between the power of enterprise managers and the intensity of enterprise R&D investment. Therefore, to some extent, the increase in the power of enterprise managers is conducive to stimulating enterprises′ innovative investment activities, which is of certain practical significance to related innovative enterprises. Moreover, the empirical research results also suggest that the legal environment in the region where the enterprise is located can restrain the effect of managerial power to a certain extent. This can provide new ideas and references for the future to weaken the negative effects of excessive managerial power in other aspects. |
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