技术独立董事可以提高R&D产出效率吗?——来自中国证券市场的研究

Technology Independent Directors and R&D Efficiency: Research from the Chinese Stock Market

与以往大量探讨研发投入影响因素的文献不同,本文从R&D产出效率视角,考察了技术独立董事制度对其的影响。结果发现,我国上市公司增加研发投入并未带来创新水平的显著提高。而聘请技术独立董事的公司能够提升R&D产出效率,并且当上市公司同时设置技术执行董事和技术独立董事时,R&D产出效率更高,但本文没有发现技术独立董事薪酬对R&D产出效率起到激励作用。本文的结论为我国政府和公司制定创新战略以及独立董事制度建设提供了参考价值。

Facing today＇s fast-changing internal and external environment of knowledge based economy, the capability of independent innovation is becoming more important, which can promote economy growth and social progress. As one of the key factors to improve the capability of independent innovation, R＆D is increasingly favored by firms. Different from the extant literature mostly discussing on the effects of the R＆D inputs, this paper de- fives from the perspective of R＆D output eff^ency and examine to which extent that the technology independent directors affect the R＆D output effi- ciency. Using non-financial Chinese firms listed on the Shanghai and Shen- zhen stock exchanges during 2006-2009, we fred that the incremental inputs on R＆D in Chinese listed f＇u-ms do not significantly improve firms＇ innova- tion level. However, for the reason that the technology independent direc- tors has its own profession background and technical skills, on one hand, it can be a kind of significant management supervision mechanism and has the strong ability to distinguish the managers＇ behavior when they use the R＆D to seek the private interests, on the other hand, it has benefit to provide professional human resourr~, knowledge and experience for company and improve the decision quality in R＆D. The empirical results show that firms hiring technology independent directors tend to improve the R＆D output efficiency; firms hiring both technology executive directors and technology independent directors who can have communication in knowledge and in- teraction in technology and thus play a positive role in increasing knowledge coordination effect and combination advantage are shown to have higher R＆D output efficiency. The compensation level of technology independent directors is not found to have incentive effects on the R＆D output efficiency. The findings of this paper have significant implications for Chinese govern- ment and firms in the decision making of the innovation strategy as well as the construction of independent director system.