Research On The Influence Of M&A Goodwill On Innovation Ability Of Listed Enterprises

As known for all,innovation is the primary driving force for economic development.As economic development becomes stable and market competition becomes increasingly fierce,it is difficult for enterprises to maintain innovation vitality only by internal activities,so seeking external resources becomes an important channel for development.As an important way to integrate external resources and expand the scale of enterprises,merger and acquisition(M&A)remain welcome in recent years.Some scholars point out that M&A goodwill generated by M&A will reduce the innovation ability of enterprises.So,what effect does M&A goodwill have on enterprise innovation? Is there any different between different markets? And how should governments and companies respond for better growth? These are all questions worth discussing.With the above questions,this paper based on synergistic effect theory,resource-based theory,information asymmetry theory and principal-agent theory to carry out research.Theoretically,this article constructs models about the influence of goodwill,excess goodwill and impairment of goodwill on research and development(R&D)investment,then explores the effect of different groups and different adjusting variables.In practice,this paper can help managers realize the negative role of M&A goodwill,and the influence of this factor is different in different groups.It points out that enterprises should make rational price in M&A activities.In addition,this paper provides theoretical basis and visual explanation for the government to formulate different policies for different types of enterprises.The empirical process and results of this paper are as follows:(1)Firstly,based on the data of listed A-shares market from 2012 to 2020 and using fixed effects regression model,it is found that the influence of goodwill formed in M&A on the innovation ability of listed companies is significant negative.(2)Secondly,the collected data are divided.The results show that the negative effect of M&A goodwill on R&D investment is significant in non-state-owned enterprise group,manufacturing group,GEM and New Third board,but not significant in the opposite group.(3)Then,the internal and external factors that can adjust the influence of goodwill on enterprise innovation ability are discussed.For the internal factors,the shareholding ratio of the largest shareholder deepens the negative effect;Among the external factors,listed companies audited by the Big Four can suppress the negative effect,while the adjustment effect of institutional investors’ shareholding ratio is not significant.(4)Finally,the impact of excess goodwill and impairment of goodwill on enterprise innovation is further analyzed.It is found that excess goodwill has a significant negative impact on enterprise R&D investment;Goodwill impairment has a positive effect on enterprise innovation ability.In view of the above empirical analysis,this paper puts forward suggestions from two aspects of enterprise and government.For enterprises: first,it should be clear that mergers and acquisitions should be beneficial to development,so as to prevent excessive institutional shareholding from appearing "one word" and harming enterprise innovation.Second,select accounting firms with good scale and qualifications for auditing to enhance the credibility of financial statements.Third,pay attention to the situation of high goodwill,impairment of goodwill according to the actual situation.For the government: first,formulate unified and standardized standards for the disclosure of M&A and goodwill,so as to reduce the market distribution imbalance.Second,strengthen external supervision to prevent the risk of information asymmetry of listed enterprises.Third,we should prudently implement policies to encourage innovation and adopt different policies for different enterprises.Fourthly,strengthen the guidance to consumers,so that consumers can form rational thinking of M&A goodwill.