企业社会责任、股权质押与非效率投资

Corporate social responsibility,equity pledge and inefficient investment

资本市场中,融资方式不可避免地会影响投资行为选择及投资有效性。因此,探究如何通过企业经济行为缓解投融资机制的矛盾具有重要意义。基于利益相关者理论和代理理论,研究企业社会责任、股权质押与非效率投资之间的关系。结果发现:控股股东股权质押通过加剧两权分离、融资约束及提高代理成本等导致企业非效率投资恶化;企业良好的社会责任表现能有效缓解非效率投资行为,显著抑制股权质押对投资不足的影响,但对股权质押与过度投资关系的缓解作用不明显。进一步地,将投资项目分类进行回归并发现,股权质押导致企业对技术资产的投资显著增加,对金融资产的投资显著减少。企业可从规范控股股东股权质押、提高社会责任表现两方面入手提高投资有效性,为上市公司提高资源配置效率提供新的途径及理论支撑。

In the capital market,financing methods inevitably affect the choice of investment behaviors and investment effectiveness.With the carrying out of the current new norm of rapid financing in the capital market,equity pledge is favored by controlling shareholders because of its easy realization,strong liquidity,approval-free requirement in the application process and unrestricted use of funds.However,although controlling shareholders expect convenient financing,their equity pledge behaviors will threaten the sustainability and stability of listed company governance and management by exacerbating the risk of control transfer,increasing the degree of information asymmetry and witnessing agency conflicts.Social responsibility,an important strategic management mechanism for enterprises,has become an important measure for evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of enterprises and whether they can achieve long-term development.Good corporate social responsibility performance can be achieved by strengthening the transparency of corporate governance structure,improving the quality of internal control,enhancing the participation and discourse power of stakeholders,forming a diversified governance structure,and effectively suppressing potential inefficient investment of enterprises.Therefore,it is of great significance for this article to explore how enterprises can alleviate the contradictions between investment and financing mechanisms by fulfilling their social responsibility as an economic behavior.Based on stakeholder theory,principal-agent theory and information asymmetry theory,this study investigates the relationship between corporate social responsibility,equity pledge and inefficient investment.This article takes Chinese A-share listed companies from 2015 to 2019 as samples and uses a multiple regression model to empirically test and analyze corporate social responsibility,equity pledge and inefficient investment.The results show that the pledge of controlling shareholders’equity exacerbates the agency conflict of the company,expands the leverage effect of control rights,and adds information asymmetry and financing constraints between the internal and external enterprises,leading to the generation of inefficient investment.The performance of corporate social responsibility can effectively alleviate inefficient investment behaviors by reducing information asymmetry and alleviating agency conflicts,significantly suppressing the impact of equity pledge on under-investment,but the alleviation effect on the relationship between equity pledge and over-investment is not significant.Further,this paper classifies and regresses the investment projects,and finds that equity pledge will lead to a significant increase in the investment in technological assets of enterprises,a significant decrease in the investment in financial assets,and a small impact on inventory investment and fixed asset investment.The above results indicate that enterprises can fulfill their environmental protection responsibilities in accordance with the law,establish a good reputation and image,improve their social responsibility performance,and improve their investment effectiveness.It is also possible to strictly comply with the“New Regulations on Pledge”,limit the number of pledges made by controlling shareholders,and timely understand the motives of controlling shareholders’pledges,the purpose of pledged funds and the flow of funds in order to curb their self-interest motives and avoid inefficient investment by enterprises.In addition,the government and regulatory departments should also strengthen legal and policy guarantees related to social responsibility and supervise the equity pledge behaviors of listed companies.This study provides new ways and theoretical support for listed companies to improve resource allocation efficiency.