关键词: 供应链管理, 融资决策, 中小企业, 股权融资

Abstract: Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) create value for economic development, but face significant obstacles due to funding shortages in their operations. SMEs have difficulty obtaining financing loans directly from commercial banks due to their lower credit ratings, poor financial compliance, and inadequate cash flow. As a result, they face challenges of expensive and difficult financing. However, equity financing is one of the important ways to help SMEs solve financing difficulties. Nevertheless, due to the relatively low regulatory requirements and incomplete financial disclosures of SMEs, fraudulent behavior can occur in order to increase valuation levels. For independent third-party investment institutions, it is difficult for them to correctly assess the valuation of SMEs due to information asymmetry and industry investment barriers, leading to financing failures. In contrast, as a member enterprise in the supply chain, the supplier is familiar with the overall industry situation. Moreover, the retailer and supplier have close business transactions, and the supplier is more likely to know the production and operation situation of SMEs. If the supplier, as the core enterprise, provides internal equity investment to the retailer with funding constraints, it can effectively avoid a series of problems caused by information asymmetry in the traditional private equity financing market. In addition, whether the investor holds the decision-making power of the enterprise after the internal equity financing in the supply chain is also a problem that needs further consideration and discussion. Generally, investors can influence the enterprise's decision-making process through adding “earn-out clauses” during the financing process. The content of the earn-out clauses can be financial indicators such as net profit margin, or non-financial indicators such as market share and user growth. In this paper, the supplier as an investor can determine the level of effort for the retailer to expand the market, which meets the non-financial performance agreement. In summary, the research questions in this paper include: 1)The impact of internal equity financing in the supply chain on the optimal operational decision-making and profits of the retailer and the supplier, namely, whether the retailer will choose financing and in which mode the financing will be reached; 2)After internal equity financing in the supply chain, what is the impact of the retailer's or supplier's control over the decision-making power of market development on the profits of both sides?
The present study investigates a two-tier supply chain system consisting of one supplier and one retailer. The retailer is a financially constrained SME, while the supplier is a financially rich core enterprise. Based on this, a supplier-led Stackelberg game model is established. Under three scenarios of no equity financing, retailer control (R mode), and supplier control (S mode), the optimal decision-making behavior and profit situation of both parties are discussed and analyzed. Furthermore, by comparing and analyzing different financing scenarios, and the following conclusions are drawn:
i)Compared with no internal equity financing in the supply chain, using the R mode of financing will increase the supplier's profit, but the retailer's profit may not necessarily increase, depending on the company's growth potential. If the retailer has high growth potential, using internal equity financing in the supply chain under the R mode can indeed increase its profit. However, if the retailer has low growth potential and blindly pursues financing and market expansion, it may actually decrease the retailer's profit.
ii)Compared with no internal equity financing in the supply chain, using the S mode of financing will also increase the supplier's profit, but the retailer's profit will decrease. At the same time, under the S mode, the supplier will reduce the wholesale price of the product and expand the market by setting a higher effort level. Therefore, if the retailer is in a highly competitive industry, the retailer can consider sacrificing short-term profits, accepting the supplier's investment, and helping the company gain a competitive advantage.
iii)Through a comprehensive comparative analysis of the profits of the retailer and supplier under the three scenarios of no equity financing, R mode, and S mode, we find that: Firstly, both parties can obtain higher profits by controlling the decision-making power to expand the market. However, even if the retailer has decision-making power, its profit will still be lower than the pre-financing level when the growth potential is low. Secondly, in order to expand sales channels and obtain higher profits, suppliers are typically motivated to provide equity financing to downstream retailers who face limited capital. Thirdly, the key factor affecting whether the retailer will carry out internal equity financing in the supply chain and which financing mode the two parties will use for cooperation is the retailer's growth potential. This means that if the growth potential is low, the retailer should reject the financing. If the growth potential is moderate or high, the retailer and investor will reach a financing agreement under the R mode.

Key words: supply chain management, financing decision, small and medium-sized enterprises, equity financing