기업벤처캐피탈(CVC) 투자와 투자기업 혁신 성과 간의 관계: ESG 리스크의 조절 효과를 중심으로

This study aims to investigate the relationship between Corporate Venture Capital(CVC) investments and firm innovation, exploring the moderating effect of corporate ESG risk on this relationship. First, adopting the organizational learning theory, I theorize a process in which a firm’s relationship with a venture through CVC investments acts as an external innovation source for learning and ultimately short-term innovation. Also, based on the discussion of the stakeholder theory, I argue that when a firm is evaluated as having high ESG risk externally, this may have a negative moderating effect that weakens the relationship between CVC investments and innovative performance. In order to verify these hypotheses, panel data analysis was performed using CVC investments data, patent application data, and ESG risk scores of US high-tech firms from 1993 to 2018. As a result of the analysis, as expected, it was found that the more the firm invests in ventures through CVC, the more the firm's innovative performance increases. In addition, the social aspect of ESG risk of a firm, related to the local community and employees, were found to weaken the association between CVC investments and innovative performance. This study expands the understanding of existing research on CVC investments as a vehicle for learning and innovation. Focusing on the importance of relationship with ventures rather than the size of CVC investments, I empirically examined that the formation of CVC relationships with ventures is directly related to the short-term innovation of investing firms. Additionally, this study contributes to the CVC literature by including stakeholders in the current discussion in addition to investing firms and portfolio ventures. Finally, this study investigated how ESG issues, which are attracting attention as playing an important role in firm activities, are related to CVC investments.