从企业商业关系网络视角,探讨客户关系对企业研发投资强度的影响。研究发现,客户集中度与企业研发投资强度呈现倒“U”型关系。进一步从企业的集团属性和地区金融发展水平研究发现,在非集团企业样本中,客户集中度与企业研发投资的倒“U”型关系依然存在,而在集团企业样本中,客户集中度与企业研发投资则显著负相关;同样地,在地区金融发展水平较高样本中,客户集中度与企业研发投资的倒“u”型关系依然存在,而在地区金融发展水平较低样本中,客户集中度与企业研发投资则显著负相关。研究表明企业的研发投资作为一种专用性资产投入,既具有在客户集中度方面的信号传递价值,还会在不同的融资约束情景下体现不同的投入强度,彰显其显著的环境调节功能,有助于企业多角度考量研发投资决策。
From the perspective of enterprises' business relationship network, this paper discusses the influence of cus-tomer relationship on enterprises' R&D investment intensity. The results show that the relationship between customer concen-tration and R&D investment takes on an inverted-U shape. Further study of the effect of business group affiliation and local fi-nancial development on the relationship between customer concentration and R&D investment finds that this inverted-U shapestill exists in non-group-affiliated firms, but the relationship between customer concentration and R&D investment takes onnegative correlation in group-affiliated firms. Similarly, this inverted-U shape still exists in regions with a higher level of finan-cial development, but the relationship takes on negative correlation in regions with a lower level of financial development. Ourstudy also shows that as a kind of specific asset investment, enterprise's R&D investment not only demonstrates its value of sig-nal transfer in terms of customer concentration, but also reflects different intensity in different financing constraints scenarios,highlighting its significant moderating effect. We hope these findings can help enterprises consider R&D investment decisionsfrom multiple perspectives.