Innovation Vouchers and the Sustainable Growth of High-Tech SMEs: Evidence from China
Innovation Vouchers and the Sustainable Growth of High-Tech SMEs: Evidence from China
Innovation has become an essential source of sustainable growth for most firms, especially small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Governments around the world widely implement innovation vouchers to promote innovation in SMEs. This study empirically explores the effects of innovation vouchers in stimulating patentable innovation and ultimately enhancing firms’ financial performance. Using a panel of 1274 listed SMEs from the Small and Medium Enterprise Board
(SMEB) and the Growth Enterprise Board (GEB), we find that innovation vouchers lead firms to utilize knowledge-intensive services and significantly increase their financial performance. We further document that patentable innovations mediate the relationship between innovation vouchers and firms’ financial performance. We report that the effects of innovation vouchers on financial performance are more prominent for SMEs with limited external informational resources. We believe that our study yields novel evidence and sheds further light on the important policy implications of innovation vouchers to facilitate the sustainable growth of SMEs.
Innovation, Innovation vouchers, Small and medium-sized enterprises, Sustainable growth
Tian, Di
8c14adf0-8a04-46ec-9b58-554ca7ba9948
Guo, Xiaohan
287267ad-1364-47f0-9a0c-63bd97b933a3
Wang, Peng
9496fb0a-1c17-4b6b-a755-aedf19bb83e5
10 October 2021
Tian, Di
8c14adf0-8a04-46ec-9b58-554ca7ba9948
Guo, Xiaohan
287267ad-1364-47f0-9a0c-63bd97b933a3
Wang, Peng
9496fb0a-1c17-4b6b-a755-aedf19bb83e5
Tian, Di, Guo, Xiaohan and Wang, Peng
(2021)
Innovation Vouchers and the Sustainable Growth of High-Tech SMEs: Evidence from China.
Sustainability, 13 (20), [11176].
(doi:10.3390/su132011176).
Abstract
Innovation has become an essential source of sustainable growth for most firms, especially small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Governments around the world widely implement innovation vouchers to promote innovation in SMEs. This study empirically explores the effects of innovation vouchers in stimulating patentable innovation and ultimately enhancing firms’ financial performance. Using a panel of 1274 listed SMEs from the Small and Medium Enterprise Board
(SMEB) and the Growth Enterprise Board (GEB), we find that innovation vouchers lead firms to utilize knowledge-intensive services and significantly increase their financial performance. We further document that patentable innovations mediate the relationship between innovation vouchers and firms’ financial performance. We report that the effects of innovation vouchers on financial performance are more prominent for SMEs with limited external informational resources. We believe that our study yields novel evidence and sheds further light on the important policy implications of innovation vouchers to facilitate the sustainable growth of SMEs.
Text
sustainability-13-11176-v2
- Version of Record
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 5 October 2021
e-pub ahead of print date: 10 October 2021
Published date: 10 October 2021
Keywords:
Innovation, Innovation vouchers, Small and medium-sized enterprises, Sustainable growth
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 453793
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/453793
ISSN: 2071-1050
PURE UUID: dafc9179-1f3f-45c3-a731-747101c9597f
Catalogue record
Date deposited: 24 Jan 2022 17:49
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 03:37
Export record
Altmetrics
Contributors
Author:
Di Tian
Author:
Xiaohan Guo
Download statistics
Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.
View more statistics
