信任文化、薪酬差距与公司创新

本文以2007-2014年沪深A股上市公司为样本,考察了信任文化对公司创新的影响以及信任文化与薪酬差距对公司创新的交互影响。实证研究发现：信任文化对公司创新水平有显著的促进作用,即与不存在信任导向企业文化的公司相比,存在信任导向企业文化的公司创新会有8.56%的提高;扩大高管团队/员工内部薪酬差距对公司创新水平有正向激励作用,且增强了信任文化与公司创新之间的正相关关系。本文不仅考察了文化力量如何影响公司创新行为,丰富和拓展了相关研究文献,而且对公司创新战略实施,乃至对提高国家文化软实力、推动中国优秀文化的创造性转化与创新性发展显得尤为重要。

Trust culture,pay gap and firm innovation

In the context in which China′s economic development enters the new normal, promoting enterprise innovation is an important means to cater to the “maker” wave of “mass entrepreneurship and innovation” and to practice supply-side reform, which is of great practical significance to industrial restructuring, economic transformation and upgrading, and the improvement of competitiveness and sustainable development of micro enterprises. Innovation is the essence of economic development and the inexhaustible motive force for economic growth. Enterprise innovation behavior is not only one of the important decisions to determine the company′s future competitive advantage and production efficiency, but also an important means to realize independent innovation to improve national competitiveness and promote sustainable economic development. Entrepreneurs are always searching for the best path for production and development in the "question" search. Among them, condensing and advocating corporate culture, and improving the company′s creativity and innovation are its only options.Huawei has been ranked in the list of the world′s 50 most innovative companies three times. Its success can be attributed to its emphasis on R&D investment, technology and innovation. This is an indisputable fact.So, what are the hidden driving factors behind Huawei′s success? Perhaps from Article 6 of Huawei′s "Basic Law", "resources will be depleted, and only culture will be endless", which can provide us with an effective way to "decrypt". It can be seen that corporate culture is the key factor driving the company′s innovative behavior.In fact, culture can change people′s beliefs and behaviors, not only affect corporate behavior, but also have economic consequences. Culture is the synthesis of human activities and achievements in transforming the objective and subjective world, the synthesis of soft power of a country or region, and the most fundamental determinant of scientific and technological innovation and economic development. Existing literature has realized the impact of cultural heterogeneity on corporate innovation activities, but most of the literature is limited to the impact of national and regional culture on corporate innovation activities, ignoring how corporate culture, an important factor, influences corporate innovation from a micro perspective.This paper examines the impact of trust culture, as well as its interactive influence with pay gap on firm innovation using A-share listed companies from 2007 to 2014 as the sample. A culture of trust can promote economic growth and social efficiency, the development of financial markets, corporate mergers and acquisitions, financing, international trade and investment, and the improvement of corporate information transparency and accounting information quality. Other studies have found that trust culture plays a role of signal transmission to the outside world, which can optimize corporate governance, enhance mutual trust between organizations and individuals, promote communication and cooperation, reduce information search cost, supervision demand and degree of information asymmetry, and thereby reduce transaction costs. Trust culture has an important impact on corporate behavior, and corporate innovation is one of the important decisions that determine a company′s future competitive advantage and production efficiency, which will naturally be affected by cultural differences.Trust culture as an important informal system, whether it is its incentive role (stimulates and maintains the source of corporate consciousness, sustained innovation), or its binding role (ethical contract can enhance the atmosphere of trust), or a combination of incentives and restrictions, will subtly influence enterprise value orientation and behavior of managers and employees, so as to help the company the development of innovative activities. Our findings suggest that trust culture can significantly promote the firm′s innovation. Compared with the firms without trust culture, the number of innovation in firms with trust culture is 8.56% higher. Pay gap between the executive and employees has a positive effect on firms′ innovation, and enhances the positive correlation between trust culture and firm innovation. This paper shows how culture affects firm innovation and thus enriches relevant research literature. Our paper also suggests that culture plays a particularly important role in the implementation of firm innovation strategies, in enhancing national soft power and promoting the creative transformation and innovative development.The conclusion of this paper has important practical significance. First of all, the establishment of organizational culture is usually top-down. This article clarifies the role of culture in the company′s innovation activities, highlights the importance of culture in improving company creativity and core competitiveness, so as to better guide company management. The company pays attention to the construction of corporate culture, creates an innovative cultural atmosphere, cherishes the organic combination of traditional Chinese culture and corporate culture, advocates a trust-oriented corporate culture, and gives full play to its incentive and restraint ("social control") functions, thereby improving the company′s innovative capabilities and innovation performance. Secondly, the research conclusions of this article help us to more comprehensively and deeply understand and understand the interactive influence of the trust culture of the informal system and the formal incentive system on the innovation activities of the company, which may provide some enlightenment to China′s corporate governance. In particular, a reasonable and effective incentive system is formulated for listed companies, which releases the innovation vitality of enterprises, stimulates the creativity and innovation willingness of executives and employees, and provided a practical way to promote the company′s level of innovation. Finally, as the embodiment of informal institutions and cultural traditions, the culture of trust is an invisible institutional arrangement that has become a "customary law" that guides and restricts social ethical life and moral behavior. The basic driving force for national behavior is not only important for the implementation of the company′s innovation strategy, but also for improving the soft power of national culture and promoting the creative transformation and innovative development of traditional Chinese excellent culture.