非生产性投入改进了新创企业的经营效率吗?

Does Non-productive Investment Improve New Ventures' Growth?

为了获取创业阶段所需的稀缺性生产资源,许多新创企业采取非生产性投入的策略,但依靠这种策略是否有助于提高创业的经营效率、解决新创企业所面临的成长困境,这是一个亟待解答的重要问题。本文基于世界银行的调研数据,以人均招待费来衡量新创企业的非生产性投入程度,结果发现:(1)非生产性投入对新创企业的经营效率产生了一种显著的倒U形作用,即新创企业在一定范围内进行适度的非生产性投入有助于改进其经营效率,但过度依赖这种非生产性投入将导致其经营效率的降低。(2)非生产性投入的倒U形效应还受到企业所处制度环境的修正,制度环境的恶化将弱化非生产性投入的绝对值效应,但却强化了非生产性投入的边际效应;随着制度环境的不断完善,非生产性投入对经营效率的非线性作用逐渐趋于平坦,其边际效应显著下降。(3)产权性质对新创企业的非生产性投入效应起到了显著的制约作用,相对于非国有新创企业,国有新创企业对非生产性投入更为敏感,即同等水平的非生产性投入将对国有新创企业绩效产生更大的积极作用,随着非生产性投入的不断增加直至超过某一临界点,同等水平的非生产性投入将对国有新创企业的绩效产生更大消极影响。

New ventures will inevitably face liability of newness during the process of growing up, as a result, it becomes entrepreneurs’ main responsibility to find ways to improve new ventures’ operating efficiency and maintain their survival. In order to obtain the scarce production resources, many start-ups have adopted non-productive investment such as rent-seeking behaviors, but whether it is an effective way for new ventures to solve problems they face in the growth dilemma through nonproductive investment? It is still an unanswered question. Based on the data of World Bank(2005), we use entertaining expenses per capita as the proxy variable of non-productive investment, and find that:First, non-productive investment has a significant inverted U-shaped effect on new ventures’ operating efficiency, which means that moderate input of non-productive investment is conducive to the improvement of business efficiency, while being too dependent on non-productive behaviors will contrarily reduce new ventures’ business efficiency. Second, the deterioration of the institutional environment will significantly lower the operating performance of start-up companies, and weaken the absolute value effect of non-productive investment. However, it has strengthened the marginal effect of non-productive investment, which means that with the continuous improvement of the institutional environment, the non-linear effect of non-productive investment to the operating efficiency will be gradually flattened, and its marginal effect will decrease significantly. Third, the nature of property right plays a moderator role between non-productive investment and new ventures’ performance. Compared with non-state-owned start-ups, state-owned start-ups are more sensitive to non-productive inputs, that is, for the same non-productive input, it will bring a greater positive effect to state-owned start-ups than to non-state-owned start-ups. As the non-productive investment increasing and exceeding a certain critical point, the same non-productive investment will have a greater negative impact on the performance of state-owned start-ups.