新冠疫情爆发后，企业创新和现金管理都受到更广泛的关注，对于企业而言如何更好的运用现金资源，寻找创新增长点，从而更好的应对短期黑天鹅事件的发生和适应长期经济减速发展的新形势，是值得深入研究的问题。2020年7月习近平在企业家座谈会上特别强调要弘扬企业家精神，指出“企业家创新活动是推动企业创新发展的关键”，打造拥有强大创新能力的企业主体，一方面要重视科研和人力资源的投入，另一方面要充分调动人员的创造性。创新活动具有周期长、风险高的特点，这就要求企业要有充足的资源对创新活动进行长期持续的支持，同时也要有有效的激励手段和相应的管理和监督机制。本文着眼于企业集团财务权利配置这一话题，探讨其中最关键的现金分布情况对企业创新的影响，以及高管业绩薪酬在这其中的调节作用。本文基于2007-2017年非金融行业A股上市公司的相关数据，对企业集团现金分布、高管业绩薪酬对企业创新的影响进行了理论分析和实证检验。实证研究发现，在企业集团整体现金持有水平一定的情况下，总体而言企业集团现金集中度越低，即子公司的持现比率越高，企业集团整体的创新投入越高，而创新绩效越差，并且高管业绩薪酬程度过低会加剧子公司持现比率对创新绩效的抑制作用。进一步研究表明，较低的集团现金集中度对于大型企业的创新绩效有抑制作用，但是对于中小型企业集团的创新投入和创新绩效却有促进作用；与国有产权的企业集团相比，非国有产权的企业集团中集团现金分散程度对企业创新绩效的负面效应更加严重；与高技术企业集团相比，非高技术企业集团的现金分散程度对创新绩效的抑制作用更加显著；在经济政策不确定性高的时期，企业集团现金分散程度对于创新绩效的抑制作用更加显著。
After the outbreak of COVID19, enterprise innovation and cash management have drawn more attention. To be better prepared for "Black swan" incidents in the short run and be adapted to low economic growth in the long run, enterprises have to think in-depth about how to effectively use cash resources to improve innovations. In July 2020 at the Entrepreneurs Forum, Present Xi Jinping emphasized the importance of entrepreneurship, and pointed out that “entrepreneurs' innovative activities are the key to the innovation and the development of enterprises”. To create enterprises with strong innovation capabilities, on the one hand, the enterprises must invest in R&D and human resources; on the other hand, the enterprises must fully incent human creativity. Innovation activities are characterized by long cycle and high risk, which requires sufficient resources and continuous support in the long-run, as well as effective incentives and proper management and supervision mechanisms. This paper takes a view from the allocation of financial rights within the enterprise group, and discusses the impact of the cash distribution between parent company and subsidiaries on the enterprise group’s innovation, as well as the moderating effects of management incentives.Based on the data of A-share listed companies from non-financial industries since 2007 to 2017, this paper conducts a theoretical analysis and empirical test on the impact of cash allocation within the enterprise group on the enterprise group’s innovation, and discuss the moderating effect of management incentives. The empirical study found out that under a certain overall cash holdings level, the lower the cash concentration, that is, the higher the cash holding level of subsidiaries, the higher R&D expense ratio of the enterprise group. But the lower cash concentration would lead to worse innovation performance of the enterprise group. In addition, the lower level of pay-for-performance management incentives will aggravate the inhibitory effect of cash dispersion on innovation performance. Further study has shown that: the cash dispersion within the enterprise group has inhibitory effect on the innovation performance among large sized enterprises, but has promoted the innovation performance of small and medium sized enterprises; compared with state-owned-enterprises, the cash dispersion within the enterprise group has more serious negative effect on innovation performance among non-state-owned enterprises; compared with enterprises in high-tech industries, the cash dispersion has inhibitory effect on innovation performance among enterprises in non-high-tech industries; and during years of high economic policy uncertainty, the cash dispersion within the enterprise group has more significant inhibitory effect on innovation performance.
