子公司自主性、风险承担与企业创新投入

Subsidiary Autonomy,Risk-taking and Innovation Investment

随着子公司发展与角色转变,子公司战略实施与组织结构变化会对组织响应产生影响。以2008—2019年我国A股民营子公司作为研究样本,探讨子公司自主性对民营企业创新投入的影响。结果发现:子公司自主性水平提高能够有效促进民营企业创新投入水平提升;风险承担能力在子公司自主性与创新投入间起中介作用;随着行业竞争水平提升,子公司自主性对创新投入的正向影响显著增强。进一步研究发现,CEO职业背景越丰富,子公司自主性对创新投入的正向影响越显著。研究结论厘清了子公司自主性的作用与边界,证明了子公司拥有自主权的优越性,可为母子公司双向治理实践提供经验证据,为民营企业创新投入决策提供理论参考,为民营企业积极创新提供新途径。

Innovation is a key determinant of economic growth,and innovation investment plays an important role in the success of enterprise innovation.As an indispensable backbone of China's economic development,private enterprises are still at a disadvantage in terms of key resource acquisition and product innovation investment.The group company or the parent company usually controls the subsidiary by participating in the cultivation and development of the subsidiary's innovation ability,but the subsidiary is not a completely passive receiver.The role of the parent as the subsidiary's main source of capital and resources is changing.As the subsidiary begins to seek its own unique resources,the parent is no longer the sole source of the subsidiary's competitive advantage.In order to adapt to this change,the subsidiary can accumulate corporate resources,reduce management costs,effectively respond to market demand,and achieve corporate technological innovation with autonomy.In addition,some scholars believe that power experience drives people to take more risks,which in turn affects corporate R&D decisions.It is worth noting that the fiercer the competition of subsidiaries in the market and the more frequent the communication between subsidiaries and stakeholders,the better they can understand market choices,and realize customer segmentation.The management mechanism of the subsidiary responds to market dynamics and competition conditions.Therefore,when the subsidiary wants to formulate appropriate marketing and management strategies,its speed and efficiency depend on its degree of autonomy.As the subsidiary develops and its role changes,subsidiary's strategy implementation and organizational structure changes will have an impact on organizational responses.This paper selects A-share private listed subsidiaries from 2008 to 2019 as the research sample,constructs the research model of subsidiary autonomy and innovation investment with the aim to reveal the impact of subsidiary autonomy on innovation investment,the risk-taking mechanism in the decision-making process of innovation investment and the dynamic change discipline in industry competition.The results show that the subsidiary autonomy can improve effectively the level of innovation investment of private enterprises.When a subsidiary has a higher degree of autonomy,it can better integrate into the external business environment of the company and carry out strategic changes,mobilize the decision-making enthusiasm of the management,and effectively improve the level of enterprise innovation investment.For the influence mechanism,the risk-taking ability plays a mediating role between the subsidiary autonomy and innovation investment.Higher subsidiary autonomy will not only stimulate managers'positive and optimistic mood and make them actively pursue organizational goals,but also strengthen the dependence on network resources among organizations,reduce the level of external information asymmetry of subsidiaries,make subsidiaries more willing to take risks and tap new investment opportunities,so as to improve their enthusiasm for innovation.In addition,with the aggravation of industry competition,the positive impact of subsidiary autonomy on innovation investment is significantly enhanced.Further research finds that if the CEO career is richer,the positive impact of subsidiary autonomy on innovation investment will be significantly enhanced.Different from the existing research,the theoretical contributions of this paper are mainly reflected as follows.First,based on the perspective of subsidiary autonomy,it deeply investigates the governance effect of subsidiary autonomy,explores the differential performance of this governance effect in combination with the industry competition of private enterprises,and expands the relevant research on the autonomy of private subsidiaries.Second,it reveals the internal mechanism of subsidiary autonomy and innovation investment,and broadens the application boundary of power approach/inhibition theory.Applying the power approach/inhibition theory to the organizational level,it is found that the autonomy of subsidiaries can promote the power improvement of organizations and managers,and the experience of power makes organizations willing to take more risks and invest in innovation more actively.Third,this paper tests the boundary effect of CEO professional background on the independent governance effect of subsidiaries,deeply understands the impact of CEO personal characteristics on organizational strategic behavior and organizational response,and systematically analyzes the effect of CEO's professional background on strategic choice and risk tendency of subsidiaries.The research conclusions not only clarify the effects and boundaries of the autonomy of subsidiaries,prove the superiority of the autonomy of subsidiaries,but also provide empirical evidence for the practice of parent-subsidiary two-way governance.It also gives a certain theoretical reference to the innovation investment decision of private enterprises,and provides a new way to promote the innovation of private enterprises.Overall,this paper can not only enrich the research on subsidiary autonomy,but also provide empirical evidence for private enterprises'innovation investment decision-making.