Zulfiqar Muhammad, Zhang Rao, Khan Nazakatullah, Chen Shihua
School of Accounting, Dongbei University of Finance and Economics, Dalian, People's Republic of China.
College of Finance, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, People's Republic of China.
Psychol Res Behav Manag. 2021 May 26;14:595-620. doi: 10.2147/PRBM.S306443. eCollection 2021.
This study aims to explore the effects of the behavior of chief executive officers (CEOs) within family firms on investment in research and development (R&D). We also investigate the effect of CEOs' psychological attributes of overconfidence on R&D investment and the moderating effect between the types of CEOs and R&D investment.
We obtained data on Chinese A-share firms from China Stock Exchange and Accounting Research from 2010 to 2018 for analysis. Then, we used the ordinary least squares model for regression results; moreover, the Tobit regression, GMM and firm fixed effect model are applied to check the robustness of the results.
Family CEOs with actual control rights are more open to R&D investment, whereas those without actual control rights exhibit negative behavior. The study found that non-family CEOs exhibit insignificant results and negative predicted signs toward R&D investment. Moreover, the results show that overconfident CEOs are more inclined to amplify innovation. Furthermore, results on the moderating effects of CEO psychological attribute of overconfidence indicate that the CEO overconfidence mitigates the negative relationship between family CEOs with actual control rights and R&D investment. However, no moderating effect is found between family CEOs without actual control and R&D investment. The CEO psychological attribute behavior is positive between non-family CEOs and R&D investment.
This novel study explores the behavioral effect of different types of family firm CEOs on R&D investment. This study will assist corporate board members to make more informed decisions about retaining (or bringing back) family CEOs (with or without actual control rights) or hiring non-family CEOs.
本研究旨在探讨家族企业中首席执行官（CEO）的行为对研发（R&D）投资的影响。我们还研究了CEO过度自信的心理属性对研发投资的影响以及CEO类型与研发投资之间的调节效应。
我们获取了2010年至2018年中国A股公司来自中国股票市场与会计研究数据库的数据进行分析。然后，我们使用普通最小二乘法模型进行回归分析；此外，还应用了Tobit回归、广义矩估计（GMM）和公司固定效应模型来检验结果的稳健性。
拥有实际控制权的家族CEO对研发投资更为开放，而没有实际控制权的家族CEO则表现出消极行为。研究发现，非家族CEO对研发投资的结果不显著且预测符号为负。此外，结果表明过度自信的CEO更倾向于加大创新力度。此外，关于CEO过度自信心理属性调节效应的结果表明，CEO过度自信减轻了拥有实际控制权的家族CEO与研发投资之间的负相关关系。然而，在没有实际控制权的家族CEO与研发投资之间未发现调节效应。非家族CEO与研发投资之间的CEO心理属性行为呈正向关系。
这项新颖的研究探讨了不同类型家族企业CEO对研发投资的行为影响。本研究将帮助公司董事会成员在保留（或召回）家族CEO（有无实际控制权）或聘用非家族CEO方面做出更明智的决策。
