股权激励计划能促进企业创新吗

Do Stock Incentive Schemes Spur Corporate Innovation

已有文献对于股权激励计划的实际影响颇有争议,文章从企业创新的视角验证股权激励计划的实际影响。为了克服选择性偏误,文章采用倾向得分匹配和双重差分模型,并选取2008年证监会发布的股权激励计划备忘录作为准自然实验验证稳健性。文章发现股权激励计划对于企业创新投入和产出都有显著的促进作用,并通过了稳健性检验。从不同激励方式看,股票期权、限制性股票都对企业创新有显著的激励作用,然而在股价距离行权价(授予价)较近时,限制性股票对高管的惩罚性会影响创新的动力,而股票期权能对高管形成保护并激励企业创新。进一步研究显示,股权激励对于企业创新的正向影响在民营企业、股价信息含量高的企业以及激励对象包含核心技术人员的企业中效果更大。本研究不仅有助于在理论上澄清关于股权激励计划实际影响的争议,而且对采用何种创新激励方式以及如何让激励产生更好效果提出了建议。

How to promote corporate innovation is vital both for individual firms＇ competitive advantage and a country＇s economic growth. In this study, we examine the real effects of corporate stock incentives in terms of firm innovation, based on stock incentive schemes of Chinese mainland A-share companies. The Chinese stock incentive schemes started in 2005 and has been growing fast ever since, but their real impacts on the firms remain controver- sial. We argue that due to a high tolerance for failure, risk-taking incentives, and a long validity period, stock incentive schemes may have a positive effect on corporate innovation. We use a differ- ence-in-differences approach to tackle the endogeneity problem and use a quasi-natural experiment -- policy amendments from China Securities Regulatory Commission in 2008 -- to establish causali- ty. We find that stock incentive schemes appear to have a positive, casual effect on firm innovation. Further analyses show that both stock options and restricted stocks have positive effects on firm innovation. However, when the stock price is near the exercise price of stock options or restricted stocks, stock options still have pos- itive effects on firm innovation, whereas restricted stocks do not. That is because of the difference between their payoff curves. Since restricted stocks have symmetric payoff curves, they would harm managers＇ and employees＇ benefits when the stock price is near or below the exercise price, which may make them focus more on short-term performance instead of long-term innovation. However, due to the asymmetric payoff curves, stock options can still protect managers＇ and employees＇ benefits, even under such circumstances, which lead to more innovation output. The positive effect of stock incentive schemes on innovation is more pronounced in non-state- owned enterprises, firms with high stock price informativeness, and firms granting incentives to core technical staff. Our paper sheds new light on the real effects of China＇s thriving stock incentives and the optimal ways to motivate technological innovation.