An empirical study on the relationship between SME boards listed companies´ corporate governance structure and R&D investment

This paper selects 204 companies listed in Shenzhen SME board from 2009 to 2011 as the research objects, empirically analyses the relationship between SME board listed companies´ corporate governance structure and R&D investment. The regression results show that ownership concentration is not beneficial to SMEs´ R&D investment, and a certain extent of outside blockholders has a positive effect on R&D investment. There is no significant correlation between the appropriate proportion of independent directors and R&D investment, but the board director holding a CEO concurrently in listed SMEs has positive impact on R&D investment. There exists a significant positive correlation between the board of directors and manager shareholding and the investment in R&D, the board of supervisors´ shareholding has a negative effect to R&D investment, however, there is no statistical significance.