职业治理重返家族治理对企业创新的影响研究

Research on the impact of return of professional governance to family governance on corporate innovation

在中国家族企业治理结构变革过程中,由职业治理重返家族治理并非罕见现象,但却鲜有研究讨论这一变革背后蕴涵的深层逻辑。本文以2004—2020年中国上市家族企业数据为样本,分析了职业治理重返家族治理对家族企业创新的影响。研究发现:相比职业经理人继任,职业治理重返家族治理降低了家族企业创新投入,但促进了家族企业创新产出。异质性分析表明,在继任环境稳定、前任-继任战略差异较低时,职业治理重返家族治理对家族企业创新产出的促进作用更显著。进一步研究发现,相比职业经理人继任,实际控制人直系后代继任对企业创新产出的促进作用更显著;与非直系后代继任者相比,直系后代继任对企业创新投入和创新产出均有显著促进作用。研究结论为理解职业治理重返家族治理继任方式提供了新的经验证据。

Succession is a critical stage of family businesses, which is related to their development and even their survival. Most of the existing research on succession in family businesses has focused on the return of family members to professional managers, and few scholars have explored the succession scenario of professional managers returning to family members. In fact, in the process of promoting Chinese family businesses from the first generation to the second and third generation, there have been many cases of return of professional governance to family governance, but existing literature has not yet conducted a more in-depth exploration of it. Therefore, this paper delved into the relationship between return of professional governance to family governance and corporate innovation, hoping to further fill and improve the research framework and content of family succession, and provide theoretical reference for the succession and innovation development of Chinese family businesses.This paper firstly compared the characteristics of return of professional governance to family governance, family succession, and professional manager succession. On this basis, based on the sample of Chinese listed family enterprises from 2004 to 2020, a multi-period double difference test was used to examine the impact of return of professional governance to family governance on corporate innovation. From the empirical results, compared to the succession of professional managers, the return of professional governance to family governance reduces the innovation investment of family businesses, but significantly promotes the innovation output of family businesses. The heterogeneity analysis showed that when the succession environment is stable and the difference in predecessor succession strategy is low, the return of professional governance to family governance has a more significant promoting effect on the innovation output of family businesses. Further research found that compared to the succession of professional managers, the succession of direct descendants of actual controllers has a more significant promoting effect on the innovation output of enterprises;Compared with non-direct descendant successors, direct descendant succession has a significant promoting effect on both innovation input and innovation output of enterprises.Based on the research results, we can draw the following policy implications: firstly, in terms of succession issues, family businesses should dialectically view the governance structure and not blindly discard the advantages of family governance. Secondly, Chinese family enterprises should accelerate the promotion of professional governance models, establish and improve the selection and promotion mechanisms of family enterprises, and provide a fairer employment environment for capable personnel. Finally, family businesses should establish more comprehensive plans to ensure smooth succession.Compared with existing research, the innovation of this paper lies in the following aspects: firstly, it has enriched the relevant research on family business succession. This paper focuses on the transition from professional governance to family governance as a succession scenario, not only providing theoretical explanations for real-life scenarios, but also broadening the research perspective of family succession, which helps to improve the research framework of family succession. Secondly, this paper has deepened the research on innovation in family businesses. This paper has explored the relationship between career governance returning to family governance and innovation input and output, as well as the impact of different environments and successor differences, which will help to have a more comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the impact of career governance returning to family governance succession scenarios on enterprise innovation.