As the driving force of high-quality economic development, improving total factor productivity plays an increasingly important role in economic development. In addition to technological progress and resource allocation, the improvement of total factor productivity is also influenced by many factors, among which financing constraint is an important one. Existing studies have shown that Chinese enterprises, especially high-tech enterprises, are constrained by financing constraints, which seriously restricts the improvement of total factor productivity of enterprises. How to alleviate the restraint of financing constraints on the total factor productivity of high-tech enterprises has gradually become a research focus of scholars. At present, relevant studies mainly consider whether financing constraints promote or inhibit the total factor productivity of enterprises, but few in-depth studies on the impact mechanism of financing constraints on the total factor productivity of enterprises. On the basis of exploring whether financing constraints promote or inhibit total factor productivity of high-tech enterprises in China, this paper attempts to conduct in-depth research on its influence mechanism.
Enterprise risk taking reflects the investment choice of enterprises. Enterprises with low risk taking level have low capital expenditure and slow response to market opportunities, which will make the productivity of enterprises stay at a low level for a long time. The level of high risk commitment can better identify and grasp the opportunity, increase the output of enterprises, improve the efficiency of resource allocation, increase the output value and scale economy effect contribute to the growth of the total factor productivity of enterprises. When financing constraints are relatively high, enterprises will face more severe financing constraints if they give up investment opportunities with high returns. By choosing high-risk projects with positive NPV, enterprises can increase endogenous funds and alleviate the adverse effects brought by financing constraints.
Internal control, as one of the important components of enterprise governance, is conducive to reducing the agency risk between different levels of the enterprise and reducing the degree of information asymmetry between external investors and enterprises. High-quality internal control can improve the information transparency of enterprises, restrict the power of enterprise managers, and reduce the self-serving behaviors and opportunism of managers, thus easing the inhitiveness of financing constraints on the improvement of enterprise total factor productivity.
Firstly, the research literature on relevant variables was summarized, and the research hypothesis was deduced by combining relevant theories. Taking China's high-tech enterprises from 2016 to 2021 as the research object, and conducting regression analysis on them, the following conclusions are drawn:(1) For high-tech enterprises in the sample, financing constraints have a significant negative impact on total factor productivity;(2) There is a significant negative correlation between financing constraints and corporate risk taking;(3) Corporate risk taking plays a partial intermediary role between financing constraints and total factor productivity. To some extent, corporate risk taking alleviates the inhibitory effect of financing constraints on total factor productivity, and this effect is still significant after robustness test. Further research shows that, grouped according to the level of financing constraints, when enterprises are under high financing constraints, firm risk taking can alleviate the inhibition effect of financing constraints on the total factor productivity of enterprises. Grouped according to the level of analyst attention, when the firm has a high level of analyst attention, the inhibitory effect of firm risk taking on the alleviation of financing constraints on the total factor productivity of the firm is more significant.(4) Internal control plays a regulating role between financing constraints and total factor productivity of enterprises. Through the adjustment of internal control, the inhibition effect of financing constraints on total factor productivity of enterprises can be alleviated to a certain extent, and such influence is still significant after robustness test. Further research shows that, grouped according to the level of financing constraints, when enterprises are in high financing constraints, internal control adjustment can alleviate the inhibition effect of financing constraints on the total factor productivity of enterprises. Grouped according to the level of analyst attention, when an enterprise has a high level of analyst attention, internal control adjustment and easing financing constraints have a more significant inhibitory effect on the total factor productivity of the enterprise.(5) Compared with state-owned enterprises, financing constraints of non-state-owned high-tech enterprises have a significant negative impact on total factor productivity; Among the relationships among financing constraints, firm risk taking and firm total factor productivity, non-state-owned enterprise risk taking plays a partial intermediary role in restraining the negative effect of financing constraints on firm total factor productivity. Among the relationships among financing constraint, internal control and total factor productivity of enterprises, the negative impact of non-state-owned enterprises' internal control regulation on financing constraint on total factor productivity of enterprises is more significant. Finally, the contribution, limitation and future research direction of this study are pointed out.