Innovation Efficiency of High-Tech SMEs Listed in China: Its Measurement and Antecedents

Abstract

Innovation efficiency is an important index to measure the innovation performance of high-tech enterprises. Numerous researches have been conducted on innovation efficiency at national, regional, and sectoral levels, while there are comparatively few studies on the innovation efficiency of high-tech small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from a micro perspective. Therefore, innovation efficiency of 251 high-tech SMEs listed in China from 2012 to 2015 is measured with the super-SBM model in this paper. The results suggest that the overall innovation efficiency is low but shows an upward trend. In addition, the antecedents of innovation efficiency are explored using the panel regression model and the conclusions are as follows: (1) government subsidies, ownership concentration, and market competition deter enterprise innovation efficiency, and the impact of ownership concentration is found to be the most significant; (2) firm size and asset-liability ratio bear positively on enterprise innovation efficiency, with the effect of asset-liability ratio being greater; (3) firm age has significantly positive effects on scale efficiency but not on innovation efficiency and pure technical efficiency.

Determining the impact of Covid-19 on the business norms and performance of SMEs in China

“…Before delving into the main topic of this research, it is deemed pertinent to mention that since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, there has been increasing instances of human suffering as the novel coronavirus is considered to be one of the most significant public health crises in the modern era (Liu et al, 2020). In light of the preceding point, it can be further stated that along with the suffering on a personal level, the novel coronavirus carries the significant potential of various effects on businesses, especially on small to medium enterprises.…”

“…Due to the short-term effect of the novel coronavirus on small to medium enterprises, it leads the businesses to focus on mitigating immediate factors that can dampen their business prospects. Therefore, the merger and acquisition can sustain the business's growth in the long run (Liu et al, 2020). However, with the pandemic, the merger and acquisition have taken a steep hit as the companies are willing to dishonor the deals they fostered with small to medium enterprises to allocate their resources in countering the effects of Covid-19, respectively (Leung et al, 2020).…”

“…Referred to (Kaberia & Muathe, 2020) study, SMEs' pandemic situation has a huge impact. It is based on the day-to-day operations that are disturbed at a higher rate (Gao et al, 2021;Liu et al, 2020;Su, Dai, et al, 2021). Despite making the policies and regulations for growth in the economy, there is a huge issue that is presented due to the reason for this pandemic situation in the previous year that has affected the performance of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs).…”

“…According to the arguments of (Gong et al, 2020), the business environment is volatile and can be easily disturbed with the help of changing conditions in the country. Hence, the businesses must look out for operational changes and make certain contingency plans to adjust the performance and safeguard the current performance to gain higher revenue from the market (Liu et al, 2020;Su, Khan et al, 2020).…”

“…The study of (Liu et al, 2020) has also highlighted that it has created the global recession risk that has resulted in declining growth of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) by 2.5% a year. Secondly, based on the current situation of COVID-19 that has affected the performance of SMEs, it has been observed that it has affected each sector and has also created a decreasing rate of returns as far as the performance of SMEs is concerned (Robinson & Kengatharan, 2020).…”