地理邻近对风险资本参与公司治理的影响

Effects of Geographical Proximity on Venture Capitalist's Governance in Portfolio Firms

针对地理邻近如何影响风险资本参与被投资企业公司治理问题,基于交易成本理论,构建以制度环境为调节变量、以投资金额为中介变量的第1阶段有调节的中介效应模型。以2004年至2013年中国A股市场公开披露的1 134个风险资本投资交易为研究样本,采用多元回归,运用依次检验和差异检验方法对概念模型进行验证。研究结果表明,地理邻近显著正向影响风险资本参与被投资企业公司治理,表明治理成本在风险资本参与公司治理决策中产生重要作用;地理邻近提升风险资本对企业的投资金额,且风险资本的投资金额也与风险资本参与公司治理显著正相关;地理邻近通过提高风险资本的投资金额正向影响风险资本参与公司治理,说明投资金额在地理邻近和风险资本参与被投资企业公司治理中有部分中介作用;企业所在地的制度环境正向调节地理邻近对风险资本投资金额的影响,制度环境越好,风险资本对地理邻近的企业投资金额越多,地理邻近通过投资金额影响风险资本参与被投资企业公司治理的间接效应越强。结果表明,地理邻近存在双重作用,不仅有利于风险资本增加投资金额,还有利于风险资本参与公司治理。

Venture capitalists （VCs） have long been recognized to be active investors in corporate governance. A large body of literature has examined the effects of VCs involvement on the corporate governance and performance of portfolio firms. However, prior studies did not pay much attention to the driving forces of VC＇s governance in portfolio firms. In order to investigate how ge- ographical proximity affects VCs governance role in portfolio firms, this paper develops a first-stage moderated mediation model, and runs multivariate regressions to examine the conceptual model on a sample of 1 134 VC investments released during 2004 - 2013 in the Chinese stock market. During the past several years, venture capital has developed very rapidly in China. Specifical- ly, the number of venture capital firms, venture capital management capital, as well as venture capital accumulated investment has experienced a sharp increase. Moreover, China＇s venture capital firms are distributed rather unevenly, and primarily in de- veloped coastal regions. China＇s situation in corporate governance and venture capital investment offers several advantages as a suitable setting to examine how geographical proximity affects VCs governance. China has a corporate governance environment with weak protection of minority shareholders, lack of active markets for corporate control and high ownership concentration. In order to protect their investments, VCs have strong incentives to play a governance role in portfolio firms. Further more, several key differences in corporate governance between China and western nations have been identified, hence, the institution context in China produces opportunities to examine how geographical proximity affects VCs choice of governance structures. Results con- clude that geographical proximity is positively associated with VCs involvement in the corporate governance of portfolio firms. It indicates that governance cost has a large impact on VCs involvement. The investment amount partly mediates the relationship be- tween geographical proximity and VCs involvement. Geographical proximity positively affects the amount of invested capital, which, in turn, positively impacts VCs involvement. Firm＇s local institutions quality moderates the relationship between geo- graphical proximity and investment amount. When firm＇s local institution environment is better, the indirect effect of geographical proximity on VCs active involvement through investment amount is stronger. However, firm＇s local institution environment does not moderates the direct effect of geographical proximity on VCs involvement. The findings show that geographical proximity has double effects, and geographical proximity has a large impact on venture capital investment and governance in their portfolio firms. It not only increases VCs investment amount, but also facilitates VCs active involvement in corporate governance.