业绩型股权激励、行权限制与企业创新

Performance-based Equity Incentives, Exercise Rights Vesting Restriction, and Corporate Innovation

心理学家认为基于绩效的财务激励损害企业创造力,本文证实绩效薪酬制度对企业创新的影响取决于其结构,结构合理的绩效薪酬制度也能够促进企业创新。具体而言,本文利用中国上市公司2006-2014年股权激励计划的详细数据,研究业绩型股权激励及其行权限制特征对企业创新活动的影响。本文发现,整体而言,业绩型股权激励有助于激发企业创新。相对于非股权激励公司,股权激励公司的研发投入和专利申请数量分别高4 0%和4 6.2%。更重要的是,股权激励对企业创新活动的促进作用受到股权激励计划行权限制特征的影响。行权时间限制能够提升股权激励效应,股权激励久期增加一年能相应增加15%的研发投入和18.3%的专利申请数量;但行权业绩考核会抑制企业创新,经行业调整的R O E目标增加一个标准差会使企业研发投入下降5%,专利申请数量下降8.39%。这些发现说明,管理层对短期业绩的关注是绩效薪酬损害企业创新活力的主要原因。

Innovation is vital for the long-run comparative advantage of firms and sustained economic growth of countries. The regulator and the practitioners generally believe that equity incentive is an im- portant mechanism to promote enterprise innovation. However, there is no consistent conclusion on the theoretical study in economics and psychology. In this paper, we investigate the impacts of managerial equity incentives and exercise rights vesting restriction on corporate innovation. We document that equity incentive and exercise rights vesting time restriction are significantly and positively related to the corporate R＆D and patent applications, yet requirements on exercise rights vesting performance impede corporate innovative activities. This finding suggests that equity incentive plans being correctly de- signed could enhance corporate innovation activities, but short-sight- ed managers could damage the enterprise＇s innovation. Our main empirical findings are still hold after several robust tests, including solving the problem of endogeneity by adopting IV approach, Heck- man two stage regression, PSM and DID. Our article has an important contribution in both theory and practice. First of all, we examine the influence of equity incentive structure on equity incentive effect based on the institutional background of Chi- na and the perspective of exercise rights vesting time restriction. It provides a way to understand the mystery of equity incentive, which helps to enrich the structure of equity incentive structure theoretical- ly. Secondly, our empirical evidence shows that short-sighted man- agers will inhibit innovation. This finding confirms the importance of tolerating short-term failure on promoting innovation. It is also found that extending the horizon of managerial decision making can promote innovation which provides an obverse side to understand the importance of rewarding long-term success to promote innova- tion. Through these studies, we provide new empirical evidences for the innovation incentive theory. Finally, we suggest that only reasonable equity incentive plans can promote innovation. It will help regulators and practitioners to have a rational understanding of the premise of equity incentive, and provide a reference for their decision-making.