The Moderating Effect of Financing Structure on Innovation Investment and Corporate Performance: A Case of Chinext Listed Companies in China

The enhancement in enterprises’ technological innovation and industrial core competitiveness forms the driving force for the development in Chinext, requiring further promotion in the optimization of financing structure to realize the improvement in enterprise performance. Based on the panel data of listed companies on Chinext from 2009 to 2019, this paper conducts an empirical study on innovation investment, financing structure and corporate performance. The results show that: 1) Innovation investment is not conducive to enhancing firm performance; 2) Internal financing is an indispensable financing channel for R&D activities in Chinext, playing a more significant positive moderating effect; 3) Diversified financing structure makes the restraining effect of equity financing on corporate performance change into a positive moderating effect; 4) The increase of debt financing scale has a negative moderating effect on innovation input and firm performance, and the negative moderating effect of long-term loan is greater than that of the short-term loan; 5) Commercial credit has a significant negative moderating effect; 6) The interaction between financing structure and enterprise innovation weakens enterprise performance. The above research results can be used as a reference for decision-making: the government should accelerate the construction of the capital market system, further optimize the social financing structure to mitigate financing constraints and reduce financing costs. Chinext listed companies should improve the awareness of innovation efficiency and effectively promote corporate performance by adjusting the financing structure.