创始人CFO、风险容忍度与企业创新

Founder CFO,Risk Tolerance and Enterprise Innovation

CFO作为长期从事资本运作与风险管理的职业经理人,其职业特征决定了高避险偏好,在为企业创新提供资本支持时更谨慎,而创始人作为一种与企业有特殊情感连接的管理者,对创新孵化通常持有更为积极的态度。然而,有关“创始人+CFO”这一在初创企业中大量存在的联合身份特征,究竟能否影响以及如何影响企业创新的文献却较为鲜见。鉴于此,通过实证分析发现:对于兼具创始人身份的CFO,尽管受到较强避险意愿的约束,但创始人身份特征带来的风险容忍度会对创新产生正向激励效应,即具有联合身份特征的CFO比普通CFO具有更高的创新激励作用;就激励路径而言,创始人CFO既会加大自身研发投入、以协同技术部门创新的方式实现创新激励,也会通过自身资本运作(参股、控股)促进外延式创新,表现为联营、合营公司的专利水平更高。相关结论在剔除“自选择和非时变不可观测异质性”等内生性后依然成立。结论拓展了创新驱动影响因素的研究维度,可为CFO作为企业战略合作伙伴激励创新提供路径支持。

As a professional manager who has been engaged in capital operation and risk management for a long time,CFO's high risk aversion preference due to its professional characteristics often leads to more caution in providing capital support for enterprise innovation.But as a manager with special emotional connection with the enterprise,the founder usually has a more positive attitude towards innovation incubation.However,the literature on whether and how"founder+CFO"can influence the innovation of start-ups is rare.This paper proves that:For CFOs with co-founder status,although they are constrained by strong risk aversion intention,the improvement of risk tolerance brought by founder identity characteristics has changed the positive incentive effect on innovation,that is,CFOs with co-founder identity have higher innovation incentive effect than ordinary CFOs.As far as the incentive path is concerned,founder CFO will not only achieve innovation incentive by strengthening its own R&D investment and cooperating with technological innovation,but also obtain extension innovation through its own capital operation(equity participation and holding),which shows that the level of patents under joint venture and joint venture companies is higher.The above conclusion is still valid after eliminating endogenesis such as"self-selection and non-time-varying non-observable heterogeneity".This paper expands the research dimension of innovation-driven factors,and provides a path test for understanding how CFO as a strategic partner motivates innovation.