The Small And Medium-Sized Enterprises' Technical Innovation And Financing Constraints

SME is the most active body in the national economy, playing an indispensable role in optimizing economic structure, promoting economic development, technological progress and employment growth. According to statistics, medium-sized enterprises, small enterprises and micro enterprises account for more than 99% of total enterprises in our country, besides, they have contributed more than 60% of GDP, more than 50% of the tax, more than 80% of jobs and more than 70%of the patents and inventions. But at the same time, SME in our country faces the grim problem of financing constraints, according to statistics, more than 90% of small and micro enterprises have no any debt relations with banks and other financial services institutions. In recent years, although the government, regulators and financial services institutions have taken many effective measures to ease the financing constraints, but the financing constraints is still a major bottleneck of restricting the development of SME in China.The financing, investment and dividend distribution are the main behaviors in any enterprises, and the financing which is the core of financial decision-making has become a hot point in the research of the modern enterprise financing. The analysis of the affecting mechanism for financing constraints is the focus of scholars at home and abroad to study. Factors of financing constraints at the present stage of research focus on the internal factors and external factors, internal factors mainly include the enterprise scale, equity structure, capital structure and the nature of the group, and external factors mainly include the fact relations, political relations and financial development.Technological innovation is the source of economic dynamism and the decisive factor in the enterprise's comprehensive strength for SME. At present, the research of technological innovation mainly focus on the measurement and its impact on the company growth and profitability, while, the study on other economic consequences is little.Domestic and foreign research has been relatively mature in the field of financing constraints and technological innovation, but study of the relation between the two is still inadequate. At present, the domestic and foreign scholars mostly analysis from the perspective of financing constraints' influence on R&D, and hold that the lack of funds inhibits investment in research, then inevitably have an impact on technology innovation. From combing through the domestic and foreign research literature, the author holds that technical innovation effects enterprise's growth, capital structure, corporate governance and the relations between firms and banks in different degrees, while, enterprise's growth, capital structure, corporate governance and the relations between firms and banks have a significant impact on financing costs, financing way and the degree of financing constraints. So, does the technology innovation have an influence on financing constraints? Based on the above consideration, this article attempts to analysis from a new angle of view—the impact of technology innovation on financing constraints, building a conduction mechanism between the two, making a certain progress in the field of financing constraints'impact mechanism and economic effect of technological innovation respectively. The research points a way out for SME which are in big trouble with financing constraints, and has important theoretical and practical significance on how to change the extensive mode of operation.In order to realize the purpose, first of all, this paper argues that the listed enterprises on the new three board is the best sample to study the financing constraints of SME in China. Therefore, this paper selects 132 listed enterprises' public data as the sample after careful and scientific handling. Secondly, based on the cash-cash flow model that put forward by Almeida (2004), this paper makes a certain development and extension, using the R&D, the output of technical personnel and patents' lagging variable to study the lagging effect of technical innovation on financing constraints of SME. Finally, this paper introduces a dummy variable that describing whether the enterprise is high-tech into the cash—cash flow model. Besides, according to the high-tech nature, this article divides all sample into two parts and has regression analysis respectively to find the difference of the cash-cash flow sensitive coefficient. The main conclusion of this article is:First, the level of technology innovation of SME in China can alleviate financing constraints and the effect is lagging. This paper uses technical innovation's lagging variable to study the lagging effect of technical innovation on financing constraints of SME. The empirical results show that coefficients of the cross terms between the three lagging variable and cash flow are significantly negative. Therefore, it has reason to think that technical innovation of SME has at least one year lagging influence on financing constraints.Second, the listed SME in the new three board has the cash—cash flow sensitivity, showing that SME are facing difficulty of financing in different degree. The reason is the new three board mainly services enterprises that in middle and later periods of the start-up stage. Those enterprises have a big output of production, operation, labor and R&D in the initial development, so purely depending on the internal retained profits is difficult to meet the demand of money. Besides, along with the capital market in our country is relatively imperfect and the financial servicing system's support for SME is inadequate, SME in China is generally faced with the problem of financing constraints.Third, compared with the non-high-tech enterprises, high-tech enterprises face a lower level of financing constraints. High-tech enterprise is the symbol of innovation and technology, its affirmation need to meet a number of index requirements including the income scale, technical personnel and scientific achievements. As a result, the high-tech enterprises in our country are more attractive to the outside world, as well, investment institutions, financial services institutions and individual investors are more willing to provide financial help for this kind of enterprise.In the end of this article, based on the angle of research and the final conclusion, the author puts forward some suggestions:improving the level of SME's technology innovation and China's title of "world's factory" into "cluster of innovation" needs the joint efforts of government and SME. First, SME should have a continuous investment on technical innovation and fully realize the long-term development of the technical innovation; Second, SME should increase investment in research and improve the technical strength; Third, strengthen the construction of professional and technical personnel in SME, establish a scientific and reasonable performance evaluation mechanism and improve the enthusiasm of technical personnel by setting a series of incentives. Fourth, perfect the protection system of intellectual property rights in China, creating a good law and policy environment for technical innovation.The main contribution of this paper is:First of all, this paper perfects the studies about the influencing factors of financing constraints and the economic consequences of technological innovation. With another new perspective, this paper studies the impact of technology innovation on financing constraints, providing a new way out of financing difficulties and the extensive mode of operation. Second, this paper breaks the limitation that the past research commonly used the listed firms on the SME board and GEM board, and decides to select listed enterprises on the new three board market as the general representative of SME in our country. The reason is, listed firms on the SME board and GEM board have a big scale and diversified financing channels, the financing constraints of them significantly deviate from the real status of SME in our country; In contrast, the new three board market values innovation and growth of SME, having no mandatory requirement for the income scale and profitability etc. The new three board market has gathered a large number of the true sense of SME in our country. As a result, listed SME in the new three board can truly reflect the degree of SME's financing constraints. Third, this paper has a conclusion that the technical innovation has at least one year lagging influence on the financing constraints. Considering the persistence and developmental characteristics of technical innovation, this article uses technical innovation's lagging variable to study the lagging effect of technical innovation on financing constraints of SME, and suggests that when SME in our country try to solve the financing constraint problem from the perspective of technological innovation, they should fully realize the long-term development of the technical innovation and don't be impatient for success.