Author(s)

Lina Kan, Ruyue Sun

School of Economics and Management, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi’an, China.

Digital finance can effectively ease corporate financing constraints and enhance corporate R&D innovation capabilities.Take the financial data of technology-based SMEs on the Growth Enterprise Market from 2013 to 2020 as a sample, the fixed effect model is used to empirically test the impact of digital finance and financial flexibility on enterprises' R&D investment from the external environment and internal mechanism.The results show that digital finance has a significant positive impact on the R&D investment of technology-based SMEs through the breadth of coverage, depth of use and degree of digitization;Financial flexibility is positively correlated with R&D investment of technology-based SMEs, and has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between digital finance and R&D investment;Further heterogeneity analysis shows that the impact of digital finance on the R&D investment of enterprises is heterogeneous due to the different life cycles and regions of enterprises. Therefore, technology-based SMEs should focus on the coordination of internal and external financial resources based on their own characteristics, and effectively support innovative R&D activities.

financial flexibility, heterogeneity, digital finance, technology-based SMEs, R&D investment

Kan, L. and Sun, R. (2022) Research on the impact of digital finance on innovation and R&D of technology-based SEMs —Moderating role based on financial flexibility. American Journal of Industrial and Business Management, 12, 1650-1666. doi: 10.4236/ajibm.2022.1211090.