客户集中度与企业技术创新:助力抑或阻碍——基于客户个体特征的研究

Customer Concentration and Enterprise Technological Innovation: Help or Hinder? A Study Based on the Individual Characteristics of Customers

关系型交易是中国区别于发达国家市场化交易的一个典型特征。文章以企业技术创新为切入点,使用20 05-2014年上市公司年报,并结合手工收集的客户个体特征数据,研究了客户集中度这一关系型交易的经济后果、作用机制以及客户个体特征的调节作用。实证检验表明,较高的客户集中度会阻碍而非助力企业技术创新。其作用机制在于,当客户集中度增加时,企业的融资约束加剧、经营风险上升,二者共同阻碍了技术创新。基于客户特征的进一步分析还发现,只有当客户的议价能力较强、破产风险较高或者与企业具有关联关系时,客户集中度对企业技术创新的阻碍效应才会存在,但上述效应不会受到客户技术水平的显著影响。文章不仅为客户集中度这一关系型交易的经济后果提供了细致深入的经验证据,而且从供应链视角为企业技术创新不足提供了基于中国情景的解释。

Relational transactions, whose ubiquity is a typical characteristic of Chinese enterprises that are different from those of developed countries（market-oriented transactions） have unique Chinese characteristics. Customer concentration is an important dimension to characterize relational transactions among enterprises. In this context, what are the economic consequences higher customer concentration will bring in Chinese companies？ Scholars still have not reached a consensus. The reason is that the existing literature has not deeply explored the internal mechanism of customer concentration, nor did it make a detailed distinction between customer characteristics and accurately assess its differential effect. That is to say, findings available are only the average effects of customer concentration at the overall level. Taking the enterprise technological innovation as a starting point, this paper uses the annual report of listed companies from 2005 to 2014 and combines the customer＇s individual characteristic data collected by hand to study the economic consequences, mechanism and the moderator effect of customer＇s individual characteristics. Theoretically, the influence of customer concentration on technological innovation may have two effects, namely, assistance and hindrance. The empirical test shows that higher customer concentration will hinder rather than promote the technological innovation of enterprises. This is because, with the increase of customer concentration, the company＇s financing constraints are intensified and operation risks are rising, both of which are not conducive to technological innovation. Based on the heterogeneity analysis of customer characteristics, it is also found that when the customer＇s bargaining power is strong, the bankruptcy risk is higher, or the company has a relationship with the company, the hindrance effect of customer concentration on technological innovation will appear, but the above effect is not related to the technical level of the customer. The conclusions still hold after a variety of robustness tests such as overcoming reverse causality, using propensity score matching methods, revising sample selection biases, and replacing core variables. This paper not only promotes the economic consequences of customer concentration from the overall averaging effect to a more detailed level, but also provides an explanation for the lack of technological innovation of the Chinese scenario from the perspective of the supply chain. In addition, clarifying the differentiation role of different types of customers can provide reference for subsequent policy formulation.