社会责任承担、环境不确定性与企业投资效率——经营稳定性保险效应与异质性影响分析

Corporate Social Responsibility,Environmental Uncertainty and Investment Efficiency:Analysis of Business Stability Insurance Effect and Heterogeneous Influence

从经营稳定性的保险效应视角出发,实证分析社会责任承担、环境不确定性与企业投资效率三者的内在联系。研究发现,社会责任承担有助于企业降低投资偏离程度,提升投资效率,而且社会责任承担存在保险效应机制,其通过降低环境不确定性促进企业投资效率的提升。进一步研究发现,不同类型企业的社会责任承担行为带来的实现经营稳定性保险效应存在差别,进而对企业投资效率存在异质性影响,具体表现在社会责任承担对家族企业、非国有企业的作用效果更强。基于企业融资约束与经营风险差异的异质性影响发现,低约束组、低风险组的企业社会责任承担行为对其提高投资效率的影响更大。社会责任承担行为通过信号机制与声誉机制改善融资约束水平进而影响企业投资效率的效应较小,更多地通过为企业赢得广泛的社会网络和丰富的政治资源、降低外部经营环境不确定性而提升投资效率。而企业经营风险的差异导致社会责任发挥作用的成本以及资源的配置发生了变化,反而加剧了企业自身的负担,使得高风险组企业社会责任承担行为的保险效应失效。

Corporate investment efficiency is always related to its operational stability.The intensification of environmental uncertainty makes it more difficult for enterprises to accurately learn market conditions,resulting in deviations in investment decisions.In particular,the uncertainty also brings about problems such as over-investment or underinvestment,which greatly affects corporate investment efficiency and is not conducive to high-quality economic growth.In recent years,the Chinese government has put forward a series of measures to optimize the business environment of enterprises,such as tax reduction,cost reduction,high convenience and strong supervision.However,relying on external governance alone is not enough.Therefore,this paper attempts to explore ways to improve investment efficiency from the perspective of enterprises themselves.Based on the perspective of the insurance effect of operational stability,this paper empirically analyzes the internal relationship among corporate social responsibility,environmental uncertainty and investment efficiency.Based on the panel data of Chinese listed enterprises,this paper finds that corporate social responsibility helps to reduce the degree of investment deviation and improve the investment efficiency.Moreover,there is an insurance effect mechanism in the corporate social responsibility,which promotes the improvement of corporate investment efficiency by reducing environmental uncertainty.Further research finds that the insurance effects of different types of corporate social responsibility undertakings to achieve operational stability are different,which in turn has the heterogeneous influence on corporate investment efficiency.It is embodied in the fact that corporate social responsibility has a strong effect on family enterprises and non-state-owned enterprises.Based on the discussion of the heterogeneous influence of the difference between corporate financing constraints and business risks,it is found that the corporate social responsibility behavior of the low-constraint group and the low-risk group has a great effect on the improvement of their corporate investment efficiency.Corporate social responsibility has a small effect on corporate investment efficiency by improving the level of financing constraints through signaling mechanism and reputation mechanism.It improves investment efficiency more by winning extensive social networks and rich political resources for enterprises,reducing the uncertainty of the external operating environment.In addition,differences in business risks lead to changes in the cost of social responsibility and the allocation of resources,which in turn aggravates the burden on enterprises themselves,making the insurance effect of corporate social responsibility in high-risk groups invalid.Compared with the previous literature,the marginal contribution of this paper is mainly reflected in the following aspects.First,based on the data of Chinese enterprises,this paper tests the effect of corporate social responsibility on improving the investment efficiency,and finds that it has an insurance effect of stable operation,which can help persuade enterprises to actively undertake social responsibility in theory.It provides a practical path and empirical evidence for improving the stability of enterprise operation and the efficiency of enterprise investment,which has important practical significance.Second,this paper discusses the impact of corporate social responsibility on investment efficiency from the perspective of corporate behavior and decision-making,and further explores the insurance effect mechanism.It expands the relevant research on the theory of corporate social responsibility,and also enriches the literature on corporate investment efficiency from the perspective of internal governance,which has important theoretical value.