The Changing Nature of Firm Innovation: Short-Termism and Influential Innovation in U.S. Public Firms
Management Science · 2026 · Yuan Shi、Rachelle C. Sampson、Brent Goldfarb、Rafael A. Corredoira
中文摘要
本文考察1997—2015年间美国上市公司面临的短期压力与技术意义重大的创新之间的联系。我们采用基于市场的短期压力指标，估计其与高影响力专利及新颖专利之间的关系。我们发现，面临更强烈短期压力的企业更不可能就高影响力或新颖的创新申请专利。为评估这一关系是否具有因果性，我们以金融机构合并后所有权风格的变动作为工具变量。分析表明，来自投资者的短期压力变化对企业创新产出具有因果影响；这一发现在多种实证设定下均保持稳健。尽管上市公司整体保持了高影响力专利的恒定份额，但此类活动已愈发集中于少数企业。这一转变似乎并未被非上市企业（如风险投资（VC）支持的初创企业）技术意义重大专利的增加所充分弥补。这些发现对资本市场对企业研发战略的影响以及上市公司创新活动的性质提出了疑问。本文由Ashish Arora（创业与创新领域）接收。资助：作者感谢首届Panmure House长期思维与颠覆性创新奖为本研究提供的资助，并感谢Matt Marx协助在康奈尔大学为本研究提供机构支持。B. Goldfarb与R. Corredoira获得了美国国家科学基金会[资助号1565553]的部分资助。补充材料：在线附录与数据文件见 https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.00857 。
Abstract
We examine the link between short-term pressures and technologically significant innovation in U.S. public firms in 1997–2015. Using a market-based measure of short-term pressure, we estimate its relationship with influential and novel patents. We find that firms facing more intense short-term pressures are less likely to patent highly influential or novel innovations. To evaluate whether this relationship is causal, we use changes in ownership styles following financial institution mergers as instruments. Our analysis suggests that changing short-term pressures from investors had a causal impact on firm innovative outcomes; this finding is robust to a wide variety of empirical specifications. While public firms as a whole retained a constant share of highly influential patents, this activity has become more concentrated in fewer firms. This shift does not appear to be fully compensated by an increase in technologically significant patents by nonpublic firms such as venture-capital (VC)-backed start-ups. These findings raise questions about capital markets’ impact on firm R&D strategy and the nature of innovative activities in public firms. This paper was accepted by Ashish Arora, entrepreneurship and innovation. Funding: The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the inaugural Panmure House Prize for Long-term Thinking and Radical Innovation for this research, as well as Matt Marx for facilitating institutional support at Cornell for this research. B. Goldfarb and R. Corredoira received partial financial support from the National Science Foundation [Grant 1565553]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.00857 .