经营杠杆、成本粘性与企业创新韧性

Operating Leverage, Cost Stickiness and Enterprise Innovation Resilience

摘要: 在全球技术迭代加速与外部环境不确定性上升的背景下，企业创新韧性已成为企业在复杂环境中持续创新、实现转型升级的核心能力。本文以2010~2023年中国沪深A股上市公司为样本，实证考察经营杠杆对企业创新韧性的影响及其作用机制。理论分析与实证结果表明：第一，经营杠杆的提高显著抑制了企业创新韧性，在更换被解释变量与解释变量衡量方式、解释变量滞后一期、引入高维固定效应等一系列稳健性检验后，该结论依然成立；第二，异质性分析显示，上述抑制效应主要存在于大规模企业和技术密集型企业中，而在小规模企业与非技术密集型企业中并不显著；第三，机制检验发现，经营杠杆会通过提高企业成本粘性进而抑制创新韧性，成本粘性在其中发挥了部分中介作用。本文从成本结构刚性视角拓展了企业创新韧性影响因素的研究，为理解经营杠杆的创新后果及企业优化成本结构、提升创新韧性提供了微观证据与政策启示。

Abstract: Against the backdrop of accelerating global technological iteration and rising external uncertainty, corporate innovation resilience has become a core capability for firms to sustain innovation and achieve transformation and upgrading in complex environments. Using a sample of Chinese A-share listed firms on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from 2010 to 2023, this paper empirically examines the impact of operating leverage on corporate innovation resilience and its underlying mechanisms. Theoretical analysis and empirical results show that: first, an increase in operating leverage significantly inhibits corporate innovation resilience, and this conclusion remains robust after a series of tests including replacing the measures of the dependent and independent variables, lagging the independent variable by one period, and introducing high-dimensional fixed effects; second, heterogeneity analysis indicates that the above inhibitory effect mainly exists in large-scale firms and technology-intensive firms, while it is not significant in small-scale firms and non-technology-intensive firms; third, mechanism tests reveal that operating leverage suppresses innovation resilience by raising corporate cost stickiness, through which cost stickiness plays a partial mediating role. This paper extends the research on the determinants of corporate innovation resilience from the perspective of cost-structure rigidity, and provides micro-level evidence and policy implications for understanding the innovation consequences of operating leverage and for firms to optimize their cost structure and enhance innovation resilience.