“夫妻搭档”治理与家族企业的研发投入——社会情感财富理论的视角

“Couple Partner” Governance and R&D Investment of Family Firms: Perspectives based on the Socioemotional Wealth Theory

本文从家族对企业的控制和影响、代际传承意愿两个维度的社会情感财富维护冲突视角分析“夫妻搭档”治理影响家族企业研发投入以及经济政策不确定性发挥调节作用的理论机理;并以2011—2017年上市家族企业为样本,以夫妻双方共同在董事会和(或)高管层任职来表示“夫妻搭档”治理,对相关理论假设进行实证检验。本文的理论与实证研究结果表明:“夫妻搭档”治理与家族企业研发投入负相关,“夫妻搭档”治理企业的研发投入显著低于非“夫妻搭档”企业;同时,经济政策不确定性对上述负相关关系产生反向调节作用,经济政策不确定性越高,上述负相关关系越弱。本文在理论方面丰富了家族企业异质性及其经济后果的研究文献;在中央政府提出“大众创业、万众创新”号召的背景下,本文研究对政府创新扶持政策的实施有一定的启示作用。

Researchers have devoted substantial effort to discuss and attempt to show how family firms are different from nonfamily firms in terms of behavior and performance.However,the variations in the behavior and performance among family firms may be as large as the variations between family and nonfamily forms of organization(Chua et al.,2012).Ignoring heterogeneities among family firms in family business research is problematic and the results may by misleading(Jaskiewicz&Dyer,2017).Attempts to understand the heterogeneity among family firms is valuable to advance researches in family firm research.Family is the core stakeholder of family firm,and families are heterogeneous across and within cultures,therefore,the heterogeneities among families are important sources for the heterogeneity of family firm.Recent works have begun to investigate how family characteristics(such as family structures,family functions,interactions among family members)shape the governance and performance of family firms.However,most works ignore the difference between the marital relation and other family relation and its effect on family firm\s behavior and performance.Several authors call to pay attention to the roles of the spouses of founders in family business(Van Auken&Werbel,2006;Belenzon et al,2016).In response to above call,in this study we attempt to investigate how“couple partner”governance affects the R&D investment of family firms.Drawing on the Socioemotional Wealth Theory,we argue that R&D investment haves both positive and negative effects on different dimension of socioemotional wealth of family;however,due to family's loss aversion to socioemotional wealth,family firms governed by“couple partner”decreases R&D investment;meanwhile,the uncertainty of economic policies moderates the negative relationship conversely.Based on a sample consisting of Chinese listed family firms during 2011 and 2017,and taking husband and wife both taking positions on board of director and(or)top management teams as proxy for“couple partner”governance,the empirical results show that,firstly,there is significantly negative correlation between“couple partner”governance and R&D investment of family firm,and family firm governed by“couple partner”invests less in R&D;secondly,uncertainty of economic policy has positively moderating effect on the negative relationship between“couple partner”governance and R&D investment of family firm.The results of sensitivity analysis show our conclusions are robust.This study contributes to the prior literature as follows:(1)it enriches the literature on heterogeneity of the source and its economic effect of Socio emotional wealth in family firm.The prior literatures have shown that to the extent that the motivation to preserve socio emotional wealth affect the strategy of family firm depend on the ownership held by institutional investors,the structure of TMT,etc.This study provides the evidence that family firms governed by“couple partner”invest less in R&D due to the preservation of socio emotional wealth.(2)This study analyzes the moderating effect of economic policy uncertainty on the relationship between the preservation of socio emotional wealth and the R&D investment of family firms,and expands the research literature on the external moderating factors of the impact of social emotional wealth maintenance on family business behavior.Under the background that Chinese central government puts forth the call of“mass entrepreneurship and innovation,”it is of significantly realistic value to understand the factors affecting R&D investment of family firms,and our conclusions have enlightenment on entrepreneurial behaviors of married couple and government\s innovation subsidy policy as follows:(1)For couple who want to become entrepreneurs,high tech industry is not ideal choice,because the motivation to perverse socio emotional wealth leads to less R&D investment,which do harm to firm's competitive advantages.(2)For government,subsidy policy for enterprise R&D can play a better role in the environment of high uncertainty of economic policy.