Search Results (10)

The development of digital finance provides new opportunities for solving the dilemma of innovation financing for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This study empirically examined the heterogeneous characteristics and mediating mechanisms of digital finance and its incentive effects on SME innovation using panel data of Chinese and GEM board-listed companies from 2010 to 2021. It was found that digital finance can significantly incentivize SME innovation; however, there are differences in efficacy among digital finance sub-dimensions, with breadth of coverage having the strongest effect, followed by depth of use, and digitization degree having a non-significant effect. Meanwhile, there is heterogeneity in the incentive effect of digital finance on SME innovation, which is manifested as private SMEs and SMEs in regions with stronger financial regulations and a higher degree of marketization being more likely to be incentivized by digital finance to innovate. In addition, digital finance can indirectly incentivize SMEs to innovate through three paths: alleviating financing constraints, improving risk tolerance, and solving information asymmetry. Full article

Despite abundant research on the relationship between CSR and firm performance, prior research generated highly inconsistent findings. No consensus has been achieved on the relationship between CSR and firm performance. The objective of this research is to examine how the relationship between CSR and firm performance is contingent on founders’ management roles, especially in the situation of the founder as CEO, which will provide insights into the inconsistent impacts of CSR. Based on panel data analysis, we empirically test the nonlinear relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and firm performance for China’s Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) listed companies. We further explore how this relationship differs under two types of CEOs: founder CEOs and non-founder CEOs. Our econometric analysis produces two major findings. First, there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between CSR and firm performance. Second, the presence of founder CEO weakens the relationship between CSR and firm performance, making the inverted U-shaped curve flatter. This research makes both novel theoretical and practical contributions to entrepreneurship and organization research by providing an enriched understanding of the relationship between CSR and firm performance. It integrates multiple theories to create a framework within which the contingent impacts of CSR can be holistically understood. It also helps managers to realize the nonlinear economic consequences of CSR activities and the different regulatory effects of founder management. Full article

The low-carbon pilot city policy is an important initiative to explore the path of a win-win situation for both the economy and the environment. Since 2010, China has established 87 low-carbon pilot cities. This policy implementation aims to encourage green technology innovation among listed companies, thereby achieving sustainable corporate growth through the promotion of energy efficiency and renewable energy. This paper aims to unveil the relationship between low-carbon pilot city policies and green technology innovation. This paper explores the impact of policy implementation based on patent data of Chinese listed companies from 2007 to 2019. Empirical results show that the policy can promote green technology innovation among listed companies in the pilot cities. This finding still holds in the parallel trend test and the PSM-Multi-period DID test. Second, the policy has a greater effect on the green-technology innovation of non-state enterprises and can promote more green technology innovation activities of enterprises in the eastern region compared with other areas. Furthermore, in terms of different stock sectors, the low-carbon pilot city policy can significantly promote GEM-affiliated enterprises’ green technology innovation activities. Finally, listed companies with a high degree of digital transformation are more active in green technology innovation in the context of low-carbon pilot city policy. Full article

In the post-pandemic era, companies are facing challenges in their business development and may pay fewer attention to their sustainable development performance, whereas the investors are looking for better corporate sustainable development. Using a sample of Chinese listed companies during 2010–2018, this paper empirically examines the relation between corporate sustainable development performance, investor sentiment, and managerial overconfidence with econometric tools such as panel data regression and S-GMM estimation. Three kinds of corporate sustainable development activities as measured by Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) indexes, including consumer rights, employee benefits, and environmental protection, are proved to have a positive impact on investor sentiment. Compared to the SME and GEM Board, investor sentiment in the Main Board is less affected by corporate sustainable development. Furthermore, investor’s high sentiment leads to high managerial confidence in the SME and GEM Board, and managerial overconfidence is self-correcting over time. This paper illustrates why maintaining good corporate sustainable development performance is beneficial for listed companies from a new perspective. Full article

Socially and environmentally responsible investing is becoming the benchmark in financial markets. Promoting emerging industries’ environmental performance, social responsibility, and corporate governance (ESG) ratings are increasingly becoming the consensus of multinational green financial institutions, investors, and governments. This study employs 3100 panel data from 2014 to 2019 to conduct empirical research on green innovation, ESG indicators, and the financial performance of China’s Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) listed companies. Based on the “causal steps approach”, we adopt the Sobel–goodman and Bootstrap test to explore the partial mediation effect of ESG indicators. Moreover, when testing the interactive effect of endogeneity, instrumental variables combined with two-stage least squares (2SLS) and a general method of moments (GMM) system are applied in the dynamic panel for robustness. Combing with the approach of ESG factors-integrated and ESG factors-embedded regression models, we find that: (1) Green innovation can significantly improve the ESG scores of GEM listed companies. (2) Both green innovation and ESG performance can improve the financial performances of GEM listed companies, and ESG performance plays an indirect mediating role in the promotion of green innovation on financial performance. (3) Both political connection strength and regional innovation capabilities can negatively moderate the promotion of green innovation on financial performance, and moderating the effect of corporate political connections is more significant than the regional innovation. This study expands the research on the effectiveness of ESG indices and green innovation from the view of micro-GEM companies, providing policy enlightenment for the sustainable development of emerging industries. Our findings provide noteworthy implications for regulators, academicians and practitioners interested in exploring green innovation, ESG rating and financial performance. In addition, providing regulators and the board of directors with insights into the company’s and country’s future growth prospects. Full article

While it is widely known that founder Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) can influence firm innovation, few studies have comprehensively examined how the founder CEO affects the firm’s innovation input, innovation output, and input-to-output conversion rate, and how these effects depend on the founder CEO’s demographic, cognitive, and corporate positional characteristics. We analyze the nine-year panel data of China’s Growth Enterprise Market (GEM)-listed companies to empirically study the relationship between founder CEO (vs. non-founder CEO), CEO characteristics, and firm innovation efficiency. Our analysis produces four major findings. First, founder CEO firms have a lower innovation input and higher innovation output than non-founder CEO firms. Second, compared with male founder CEOs, female founder CEOs can further reduce innovation input without sacrificing innovation output. Third, founder CEOs with a higher education level can also further reduce innovation input without sacrificing innovation output. Finally, compared with founder CEOs that are not the chairman of the board, the founder CEOs that take dual positions (CEO and chairman) allocate higher innovation input, but the innovation output does not increase. These findings have implications for both research and practice in helping firms achieve sustainable development. Full article

Background: The Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) occupies an important economic position in China and has great research value. Methods: Based on the panel data of 142 GEM-listed companies in the YREB from 2015 to 2019, using the DEA Malmquist index, σ-convergence and β-convergence models, this study empirically analyzes the dynamic change and convergence trend of the innovation efficiency of these companies. Results: The number of these companies increased significantly but the innovation efficiency of them has not reached the optimal level. From a static point of view, companies in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River have the highest innovation efficiency, while from the dynamic point of view, the Yangtze River Delta region has the highest innovation efficiency. Moreover, most companies have an agglomeration effect, and there is a big gap in innovation efficiency. There is no σ-convergence trend in the YREB and its sub-regions, but there is an obvious β-convergence trend. Conclusions: The innovation efficiency of these companies has a lot of room for improvement. There is industry heterogeneity, and exogenous factors have different effects on the improvement of innovation efficiency in different regions owing to the differences in geographical location, economic development level, and other factors. Full article

Previous research on the effect of board characteristics mostly examines established firms. This raises the question of whether the findings from the board characteristics literature are applicable to rapidly growing enterprises, as their corporate governance landscape can be very different from that in large, mature companies. Our paper extends the corporate governance literature by investigating the performance implications of board characteristics in startups using a unique set of firms: 121 startups operating in the information technology industry listed on the Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) in China. Using a firm performance indicator constructed through the factor analysis method, we find significant correlations between firm performance and board size, age structure, board meeting frequency, and board ownership of shares. Our findings contribute to the corporate governance literature by shedding new light on the performance implications of board characteristics for startups operating in fast-paced industries. Full article

The implementation of innovation-driven strategy requires business organizations to actively conduct technological innovation activities. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance is an important factor to promote technological innovation, and venture capital (VC) as a matching capital with technological innovation also affects technological innovation. Using Chinese listed companies on the Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) during the 2014–2018 period as a sample, we study the role of corporate social responsibility performance in technological innovation and the impact of venture capital on the relationship between the two. We find that social responsibility performance can effectively promote innovation, which is promoted significantly by the shareholder responsibility and employee responsibility dimensions of social responsibility. We also find that venture capital inhibits the promotion of social responsibility to technological innovation. This work will guide VC institutions to pay more attention to business organizations social innovation projects. Full article

Rural revitalization is an important strategy to promote sustainable development of rural areas in China. Rural revitalization listed companies play an important role in implementing the rural revitalization strategy and developing the agricultural industry. However, the financing problem has always been a bottleneck problem with Chinese listed companies. This study used a two-stage DEA (data envelopment analysis) method to evaluate the funds raising efficiency, funds using efficiency, and overall financing efficiency of 34 rural revitalization listed companies in 2018. The results show that the financing efficiencies of 34 sample companies were low, only six companies have overall efficient financing, and there was much room for improvement. Financing efficiency varied greatly depending on the nature of the company, the industry, and the listing board. The efficiency of funds using of state-owned enterprises was much lower than that of private companies. The average efficiency value of agricultural company funds raising was lower than that of manufacturing. The efficiency of small and middle-size enterprises (SMEs) was lower than that of main board companies, but the growth enterprise market (GEM) companies achieved higher efficiency in the funds using. Further, by using the grey relational analysis (GRA) method, we found that the key factors affecting the financing efficiency of sample companies included capital structure, debt-paying ability, governance structure, company age, and operating ability. To improve financing efficiency, the companies should not only optimize their capital structure and governance structure but also improve their management and innovation capabilities. At the same time, the state also needs to give different policies support according to the characteristics of the companies. Full article