合资伙伴多样性、股权配置与合资风险

Partner Diversity,Equityy Structure and IJV Survival

合资企业的技术溢出是我国经济发展和技术进步的重要促进力量,合资伙伴多样性可能会产生异质性影响。本文以1998—2013年中外合资企业为样本,采用离散时间Cloglog生存分析模型,考察了合资伙伴多样性及股权配置对合资关系稳定性的影响及作用机制。研究发现:合资伙伴多样性显著有助于企业市场存活能力的改善,不仅降低了合资企业的退出风险,也降低了合资企业独资化的概率。合资伙伴之间股权配置越接近,越有利于合资关系的稳定持续;反之,股权占比的离散程度越高,则合资关系破裂的概率越大。进一步研究发现,联合研发优势是合资伙伴多样性促进企业生存的重要渠道,合资伙伴多样性不仅显著提高了企业的研发创新倾向,也增加了企业的研发创新投入数量。此外,良好的外部制度环境也是促进多样性合资企业持续经营的重要保障。本研究为当前我国高效利用外资和进一步深化对外开放提供了政策建议,在不断吸引外资的同时,更要加强不同外资与不同内资的多样化合作,通过外资与内资的良性互动,促进合资关系的持续稳定。

International joint ventures(IJVs)have become an increasingly important organizational form for multinational enterprises(MNEs).They can not only reduce entry barriers and avoid policy risks for MNEs,but also generate spillover effects to promote the economic development and technological progress of the host country.Especially with the continuous refinement of the global value chain,multi-party joint ventures between enterprises from different countries have gradually become an important way to gain market competitiveness.The advantage of multi-party joint ventures lies in their ability to leverage synergies through resource aggregation and sharing.However,as the number of joint venture partners increases,potential internal cooperation conflicts and transaction costs will also increase.Therefore,we combine the Resource Based View of the Firm and Transaction Cost Economics to investigate the effects of the key aspects of partner diversity on IJVs dissolution.Based on the sample of Sino foreign joint ventures from 1998 to 2013,this paper adopts a discrete-time Cloglog survival analysis model,which not only estimates the impact of diversity and equity structure on stability,but also examines the mechanism.The research findings are as follows:Firstly,the diversity of partners significantly improves the viability of IJVs,reducing not only the risk of bankruptcy but also the probability of sole proprietorship.Compared with the single-type IJVs,the diversity of joint venture partners reduces the probability of dissolution by 3.18%.This conclusion holds for joint ventures with diversified foreign capital,domestic capital,or diversified investment from both domestic and foreign sources.In addition,the dynamic analysis of business mode transformation further validates the conclusions,as the survival risk of the company decreases significantly when the joint venture is transformed from monotypic to diversified,while the opposite transformation leads to a significant increase in survival risk.Second,the analysis of the influence mechanism shows that the R&D innovation investment is an important channel.The diversity of partners not only increases the R&D innovation tendency but also increases the intensity of their R&D innovation,which in turn improves their market survival ability.Although the diversity of partners increases the management costs of companies,there is no empirical evidence that it negatively affects the IJVs survival.Third,equity allocation is also crucial.The more equal the equity shares among the partners,the more conducive to the stability and sustainability of the joint venture relationship.Conversely,the higher the dispersion of the shareholding between the partners,the higher the risk of survival.The estimated results indicate that with a one-unit increase in the dispersion of the shareholding leading to a 13.24%increase in the probability of dissolution.Moreover,equity allocation has a greater impact on the survival of diversified-type joint ventures compared to monotypic joint ventures.Finally,we examine the important influence of the external institutional quality and find that a good external institutional environment guarantees for the stability and sustainability of the joint venture relationship.The research in this paper has important theoretical contributions and practical implications.Compared with the previous studies,this study has two theoretical contributions:On the one hand,this paper confirms that IJVs with both geographic and organizational diversity have lower survival risk and are more likely to be stable and sustainable.This fills the gap in existing research that only focuses on geographical diversity while neglecting organizational diversity.On the other hand,this paper reveals the theoretical mechanism by which geographic and organizational diversity of partners affect the survival risk of multiparty joint ventures based on Resource Based Theory and Transaction Cost Theory.In addition,this paper further elaborates on the important accounting purposes of local enterprise ownership attributes in multi-party joint ventures from the perspective of government enterprise connections.