客户盈余表现与企业创新的融资约束
安素霞1，刘来会2，王磊2
（1.山东财经大学 会计学院，山东 济南250014；
2.山东财经大学 国际经贸学院，山东 济南250014)
摘要：企业创新是建设创新型国家的主要推动力，但企业创新面临的融资约束一直是影响企业开展研发活动的瓶颈。如何缓解企业创新活动的融资约束一直是实务界和理论界的一大难题。基于此，本文利用手工整理的2009—2018年1389对客户与企业均为上市公司的供应链数据，基于高盈余客户的担保效应和信号传递效应，在跨企业关系情形下考察了客户盈余表现对企业创新融资约束的影响，并将供应链关系和客户地理邻近性作为情景因素纳入研究框架。研究发现，客户盈余表现越好，越有助于缓解企业创新的融资约束，表明客户盈余表现在供应链企业间存在信息溢出效应。在使用PSM，Heckman两阶段等方法解决潜在的内生性问题之后，该研究结论依然稳健。其中高盈余客户的担保效应和信号传递效应有助于扩大企业的债务融资和股权融资规模，进而有效缓解企业创新活动面临的融资约束问题。另外，当供应链关系越稳定和良性、大客户地理距离越邻近时，客户盈余表现缓解企业创新融资约束的作用越强。进一步分析发现客户盈余表现对企业创新融资约束的缓解作用在非国有企业和经济政策不确定性较高时尤为显著。本研究不仅在考察跨企业关系情境下企业创新的融资约束的影响因素和客户盈余表现的经济后果两方面弥补了现有文献的不足，且对企业如何缓解创新的融资约束问题提供了相关经验证据和决策参考。这对深入理解供应链关系管理及整合，推动供给侧结构性改革和提高我国产业链供应链全球竞争力进而促进经济高质量发展具有重要的启示意义。
关键词：客户盈余表现；融资约束；创新；供应链关系；客户地理邻近性
主要研究结论：近年来，客户信息的溢出效应逐渐成为学术界关注的热点问题，但以往研究多集中在客户信息溢出所带来的资本市场的反应，但却鲜少涉及客户自身信息对企业创新融资决策的影响。因此，本文利用2009—2018年上市“企业-年度-客户”的三维供应链数据，从客户盈余表现视角考察了客户信息对企业创新融资约束的影响。研究结果表明：（1）客户盈余表现越好，越有助于缓解企业创新活动的融资约束。研究结论在使用Heckman两阶段和倾向得分匹配法解决潜在的内生性问题之后，结果依然稳健。（2）渠道检验表明高盈余客户的担保效应和信号传递效应有助于提高企业的债务融资和股权融资规模，进而有效缓解企业创新的融资约束问题。（3）调节效应检验表明当供应链关系越稳定和良性、大客户与企业之间地理距离邻近时，客户盈余表现对企业创新融资约束的缓解能力越强。（4）异质性分析结果表明客户盈余表现缓解企业创新融资约束在非国有企业和高经济政策不确定性的情境下更为显著。
Customer earnings performance and financing constraints of enterprise innovation
An Suxia1, Liu Laihui2, Wang Lei2
(1. School of Accountancy, Shandong University of Finance and Economics, Jinan 250014, Shandong, China;
2. School of International Economy and Trade, Shandong University of Finance and Economics, Jinan 250014, Shandong, China)
Abstract:Enterprise innovation is the main driving force of building an innovative country, but the financing constraint faced by enterprises has been a bottleneck affecting their R&D activities. How to alleviate the financing constraint of enterprise innovation activities has been a major problem in both practical and theoretical circles. However, due to the inherent characteristics of innovation such as high investment, high risk and high uncertainty, the spillover of innovation results and the asymmetry of innovation information make corporate innovation often face serious financing constraints. In particular, the disruption of local and global supply chains brought about by the COVID-19 epidemic poses a serious challenge to the development of firms′ production and innovation activities. However, the existing literature has mainly explored the factors influencing the financing constraints faced by firms′ innovation activities based on the macro level (Wan et al., 2020; Tang and Wu, 2015), but rarely explores the impact of customer earnings performance on the financing constraints of firm innovation from a supply chain information spillover perspective.
In view of this, this research examined the impact of customer earnings performance on firms′ innovation financing constraints based on the guarantee effect and signaling effect of high-earning customers using manually collated supply chain data from 2009-2018 for 1389 pairs of customers and firms that are both listed companies. It was found that the better the customer earnings performance, the more it helps to alleviate the financing constraint of corporate innovation. Among them, the high earning customer guarantee effect and signaling effect help expand the scale of debt financing and equity financing of enterprises, which in turn effectively alleviate the financing constraints faced by enterprises′ innovation activities. In addition, when the supply chain relationship is more stable and benign, and the geographical proximity of large customers is more proximate, the stronger the role of customer earnings performance in alleviating enterprises′ innovation financing constraints. Further analysis found that the role of customer earnings performance in reducing firms′ innovation financing constraints is particularly significant when non-state enterprises and economic policy uncertainty are high.
The contributions of this research are as follows. First, it has expanded the research boundary of the economic consequences of customer earnings performance. The current literature mainly explored the effects of customer earnings information spillovers on corporate stock prices, bank loan maturities, and investment efficiency (Peng and Wang, 2018; Kim et al., 2015; Chen et al., 2021), but rarely explored how customer earnings performance affects the financing constraints of firm innovation from a supply chain relationship perspective. This paper showed that customer earnings performance is an important factor affecting the financing constraint of corporate innovation. Second, it has provided empirical evidence on the channels of the role of customer earnings performance in alleviating firms′ innovation financing constraints. The current literature mostly directly examined the relationship between customer characteristics such as government background customers, stable customers and firm innovation (Dou et al., 2020; Qiu and Cheng, 2021), lack of analysis of its mechanism of action. This paper analyzed and verified that customer earnings performance can effectively alleviate the financing constraints of corporate innovation by increasing the scale of corporate debt and equity financing. Third, this paper has expanded the depth of research on the impact of customer earnings performance on enterprise innovation financing constraints from the perspective of supply chain relationships, and confirmed that the establishment of stable and benign supply chain relationships can help enterprise innovation financing activities, which has provided empirical evidence for the current policy of "improving the stability and competitiveness of industrial chain supply chains".
According to the findings of this paper, the following main insights are drawn: (1) For enterprises, they should actively build strong ties with high quality customers to effectively alleviate the financing constraints of corporate innovation. At the same time, enterprises should establish long-term stable and benign supply chain relationships with high-earning customers. In addition, enterprises can make use of the geographical location advantage to optimize the supply chain system, strengthen the information exchange with customers in the geographical proximity, and create a good supply chain ecology. (2) For creditors such as banks, when evaluating the innovative investment decisions of enterprises, they can combine with the earnings performance of customers to adjust the scale of enterprise loans and reduce credit risks in a timely manner. For investors such as shareholders, they need to strengthen their understanding of the spillover effect of customer information in supply chain relationships. Investors should review the situation to adjust their investment decisions. (3) For the government, the regulator should regulate the public information disclosure of enterprises and effectively improve the authenticity and effectiveness of information disclosure. In addition, in the current environment of high political and economic uncertainty, the government should facilitate financing from banks and other financial institutions for enterprises, especially non-state enterprises, in order to broaden their financing channels, reduce financing costs, and promote their enthusiasm for investing in innovative activities.
Key words:customer earnings performance; financing constraint; innovation; supply chain relationship; geographical proximity of customers
引用本文：安素霞,刘来会,王磊.客户盈余表现与企业创新的融资约束[J].科研管理,2023,44(08):89-99.
转自：“科研管理”微信公众号
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