An Empirical Analysis Of Technology Innovation Voucher And Innovation Performance In High-tech SMEs

Innovation is not only an important driving force for technological progress,but also a basic factor to enhance the competitiveness of enterprises and countries,especially for high-tech small and medium-sized enterprises(high-tech SMEs).However,due to market failure in enterprises' innovation activities,the government needs to make appropriate financial subsidies to optimize resource allocation and make up for market failure.But during the operation process of the traditional government innovation subsidies,represented by direct financial allocation,all kinds of malpractices have exposed,such as crowding-out effect and rent-seeking.At the same time,as an emerging government subsidy policy that indirectly supports SMEs innovation,the innovation vouchers policy has been widely implemented in China and achieved good results.Compared with the direct government subsidy,the technology innovation vouchers not only have the effect on R&D subsidy,but also can promote Industry-University-Research collaboration.Will innovation vouchers help high-tech SMEs improve their innovation performance?And what is the effect of the technology innovation vouchers on enterprises with different level of financing constraints?Moreover,is it possible that the intimate and clean relationship between politics and business advocated today can promote the relationship between the innovation vouchers and the innovation performance,so as to realize the positive interaction between power and capital?Based on the above questions,this paper analyzes the impact of the application of technology innovation vouchers on the innovation performance of high-tech SMEs,and discusses the moderation of financial constraints and new government-business relationship.On the basis of combing the existing literature,this paper first clarifies the relationship between technology innovation vouchers and innovation performance,and then puts forward research hypotheses according to theoretical deduction.Based on the theoretical analysis,this paper conducts an empirical study based on the data of 1014 high-tech SMEs from 2015 to 2018.The results show that:(1)innovation vouchers have a significant role in promoting innovation performance;(2)financing constraints have a negative moderating effect on the relationship between innovation vouchers and innovation performance;(3)the intimate and clean relationship between politics and business have a positive moderating effect on the relationship between innovation vouchers and innovation performance;(4)further research finds that innovation vouchers also significantly promote the innovation efficiency.At the same time,this paper carry out the PSM eliminates the possible endogenous problems,and replaces the relevant explanatory variables to improve the robustness of this conclusion.The above conclusions not only enrich the domestic research in the field of technology innovation vouchers,but also provide a reference for the formulation of innovation vouchers policy and the practice of enterprises.At the enterprise level,it provides new ideas for the innovation and development of SMEs and provides theoretical support for enterprises to make better use of technology innovation vouchers to carry out Industry-University-Research collaboration.At the policy level,this paper provides decision-making reference for the government to revise and improve the technology innovation voucher policy,and further strengthen the formulation and promotion of technology innovation voucher policy.