기업지배구조와 R&D투자의 변동성 : 변동계수와 재량적 변동성

Prior studies have mainly investigated the agency problem for R&D investment in terms of level, a short-term decision-making structure. However, since R&D investments are strategically based on long-term investment plans rather than on short-term ones, it is necessary to look at the behavior of R&D investments for multiple years in order to better explain the issue of R&D investments. In response, this study looked at the relevance of corporate governance and R&D investment to Korea’s listed manufacturing companies for 10 years from 2009 to 2018, noting that indicating volatility in R&D investment for many years is a proxy problem due to manager’s opportunistic behavior. In particular, the variability of R&D investments was measured by means of discretionary variability taking into account the coefficient of variability according to existing research methods and the newly proposed trend. First, regression analysis using R&D variability coefficients could not clearly identify the agency problem with respect to R&D investment variability for professional managers, but analysis using discretionary variability with respect to trends showed the agency problem for professional managers. The more institutional investors continued to participate as major shareholders, the lower was the volatility of R&D investments. Second, the effect of controlling shareholders on the variability of R&D investments was analyzed, and only discretionary volatility in consideration of trends could chaebol shareholders see the effect of mitigating the problem of representatives of professional managers, but foreign investors and institutional investors did not find any significant effect. This study enhanced the understanding of the strategic decision-making structure of R&D investments and raised the need to clearly distinguish the nature of R&D investments.