The Impact of Supply Chain Finance on R&D Investment Efficiency in SMEs:The Perspective of Financial Constraints
Innovation can help SMEs reduce costs,improve efficiency,and enhance the quality of their products and serv-ices,bringing long-term growth.However,due to their own financial and technological constraints,SMEs generally have certain barriers to innovation.How to help SMEs ease financing constraints and enhance technological innovation capabili-ty has become an urgent issue to be addressed.Supply chain finance plays an important role in stimulating the innovation activities of SMEs.On the one hand,the adoption of supply chain finance can make it easier for SMEs to obtain lower-cost funds,thus alleviating their financing constraints.On the other hand,close partnerships based on supply chain finance ec-ological networks can promote business dealing and core technology sharing in the chain,thus accelerating the formation of collaborative innovation networks,which is conducive to improving the innovation capability of SMEs.Existing studies have verified that supply chain finance can alleviate financing constraints,while financing constraints can affect firms'R&D investment efficiency.However,the logical link between supply chain finance,financing constraints,and R&D invest-ment efficiency has not yet been established.Given the above research deficiencies,this paper aims to explore the effect of supply chain finance on the R&D invest-ment efficiency of SMEs.It focuses on the external influence mechanism as well as the internal conduction path and veri-fies the role that financing constraints play between supply chain finance and R&D investment efficiency.The data of 109 GEM-listed SMEs from 2016 to 2022 is selected for empirical analysis.Firstly,the original data are subjected to descrip-tive analysis,a correlation test,and a variance inflation factor test to eliminate interfering factors.Subsequently,the data is analyzed based on three-stage DEA analysis,binary logistic regression,multiple linear model regression,and panel To-bit model regression to verify the suppressing effect and moderating effect among the variables.Finally,key variables were replaced for robustness testing to ensure the accuracy of the findings.The results show that supply chain finance can significantly enhance the R&D investment efficiency of SMEs,and financing constraints play a suppressing effect between the two(i.e.,by controlling for the factor of financing constraints,the effect of supply chain finance on the R&D invest-ment efficiency will be more enhanced).Further,in firms with higher supplier concentration and customer concentration,the enhancement effect of supply chain finance on R&D investment efficiency is more significant.This study makes a contribution in two ways.First,it introduces the concept of"efficiency"in measuring firms'inno-vation performance.Through the three-stage DEA method,the whole process of"injection of innovation resources","in-cubation of innovation results","realization and commercialization"is tracked,which is more comprehensive than other innovation performance measurement methods.In addition,three-phase DEA overcomes the disadvantages of traditional DEA,which ignores the environmental impact and cannot be adjusted.It is able to measure more realistic R&D invest-ment efficiency,which provides a basis and guidance for the comprehensive assessment of SMEs'innovation performance and the long-term development of innovation activities.Secondly,it confirms the direct effect between supply chain fi-nance and R&D investment efficiency,and verifies the suppressing effect of financing constraints and the moderating effect of supply chain concentration.This lays the foundation for further exploring the internal mediating variables and external moderating variables of the relationship between supply chain finance and R&D investment efficiency.The financing con-straints and supply chain concentration variables selected in this paper can highly correspond to two important directions for the development of supply chain finance business:one is to continue to strengthen the role of support for SMEs'finan-cing,and the other is to build a supply chain finance ecosystem that promotes SMEs to be embedded in the synergistic sys-tem of value co-creating and risk-sharing with supplier firms and customer firms.The research on suppressing and moder-ating effects in this study responds to the call of reality,and the conclusions are conducive to giving full play to the advan-tages of supply chain financing and collaborative innovation,so as to provide dual support for SMEs'innovation activities in terms of both finance and technology.
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