Abstract: From the perspective of enterprise business relationship network, this Paper discusses the influence of customer relationship to R&D investment intensity. The results show that the relationship between customer concentration and R&D investment takes on an inverted-U shape. Further, we explore the effect of business group affiliation and local financial development on the relationship between customer concentration and R&D investment. We find that this inverted-U shape still exists in non-group-affiliated firms, but the relationship between customer concentration and R&D investment takes on negative correlation in group-affiliated firms. Similarly, this inverted-U shape still exists in regions with developed financial development, but the relationship takes on negative correlation in regions with less developed financial development. Our study shows that enterprise’s R&D investment as a kind of specific asset investment, not only demonstrates the value of its signaling in terms of customer concentration, but also relects different intensity in different financing constraints scenarios, highlighting its significant moderating effect, this paper helps enterprises consider R&D investment decisions from multiple perspectives.

摘要： 文章从企业商业关系网络的视角，探讨客户关系对企业研发投资强度的影响。研究发现，客户集中度与企业研发投资强度呈现倒“U”型关系。进一步从企业的集团属性和地区金融发展水平研究发现，在非集团企业样本中，客户集中度与企业研发投资的倒“U”型关系依然存在，而在集团企业样本中，客户集中度与企业研发投资则显著负相关；同样地，在地区金融发展水平较高样本中，客户集中度与企业研发投资的倒“U”型关系也依然存在，而在地区金融发展水平较低样本中，客户集中度与企业研发投资则呈现显著负相关。研究表明企业的研发投资作为一种专用性资产投入，既彰显了其在客户集中度方面的信号传递价值，而且还会在不同的融资约束情景下体现不同的投入强度，彰显其显著的环境调节功能，有助于企业多角度考量研发投资决策。