政治关联促进还是阻碍了企业创新?正式与非正式政治关联的差异化影响

Political Connections as a Blessing or Curse for Firm Innovation? Different Effects of Formal and Informal Political Connections

拥有政治关联的企业是否更愿意从事创新活动?现有研究就此问题观点不一。为解答这一问题,本文区分了两种类型的政治关联,即正式政治关联与非正式政治关联。本文从理论上阐释了这两种类型政治关联的不同性质和功能,以及它们如何对企业创新行为产生差异化影响。本文利用2001至2007年中国上市企业政治关联和创新活动的面板数据对理论进行验证。研究发现,正式关联的企业表现出更高的创新绩效,而非正式关联企业则表现出较低的创新绩效。本研究对政治关联异质性和政治资本权变价值理论做出了重要贡献。

Do politically connected firms engage in higher level of innovation?Prior literature presents contradictory arguments regarding this question.To solve the puzzle,we differentiate two types of political connections,formal and informal,and theorize how different nature and function of these two types of political connections impose distinct effects on firm innovation behavior.We test the arguments using panel data of political connection and innovation of Chinese listed firms from 2001 to 2007.We found that formally connected firms exhibit higher innovation performance,while informally connected firms exhibit lower innovation performance.Our research contributes to the literature of heterogeneity of political connections and contingent value of political capital.