軟體業研發資本化與研發過度投資之關聯性：論管理者權益薪酬之影響

Relationship between R&D Capitalization and R&D Overinvestment in the Software Industry: The Effect of Executive Equity-Based Compensation

Prior studies show that immediate expensing of R&D expenditures creates R&D underinvestment problems. In contrast, from data on firms listed in the U.S. software industry for 2001 to 2011, we provide evidence that R&D capitalization is positively associated with R&D overinvestment. This evidence sheds light on one kind of agency problem- R&D overinvestment- caused by R&D capitalization decisions and, in turn, provides implications for investors and regulators in assessing the consequences of R&D capitalization. Moreover, we examine the effect of executive equity-based compensation on mitigating such agency problem. Our results support that executive equity-based compensation serves as an important mechanism to alleviate R&D overinvestment problems driven by R&D capitalization. This evidence is of value to firms' compensation committees in designing executive compensation structures to motivate managers' R&D investment decisions from long-term perspectives. We finally conduct additional tests to ensure that our empirical results are robust to potential endogeneity concerns and competing explanations. 過去研究發現，研發費用化的規定誘發了研發投資不足的問題。然而，以2001年至2011年美國軟體業公司為樣本進行實證分析，本研究發現研發資本化與研發過度投資呈正向關係，顯示研發資本化決策可能引發的過度投資代理問題，故此證據對於投資人和主管機關在評估研發資本化的後果時具有涵意。此外，本研究檢測提供管理者權益薪酬對於減緩此種代理問題的效果，實證結果獲得支持，顯示管理者權益薪酬係抑制前述研發過度投資問題的重要機制。此證據對於公司薪酬委員會具有參考價值，可藉由薪酬結構中設計提供權益薪酬，激勵管理者以長期觀點進行研發投資相關決策。最後，本研究進行額外測試，排除內生性問題和競爭性解釋的潛在影響，以加強本研究結論的堅實性。