Abstract: The issue of the effectiveness of equity incentives has been a great concern, and more scholars have studied the impact of equity incentives on investment behaviour, but no consistent conclusions have been reached, which may be due to the fact that equity incentive programmes are considered homogeneous. In practice, the different settings of each element of the equity incentive programme are the key to influencing the company's investment behaviour, and only the design of an appropriate incentive programme can play a positive incentive role. However, most of the previous studies only explore the impact of equity incentives on investment behaviour from the perspective of whether equity incentives are implemented or not, and fewer studies reveal the impact of different elements of equity incentives on investment behaviour in detail, and the relevant studies are also mainly conducted from the perspective of the level of equity incentives and the elements of the equity incentive mode, and fewer studies explore the impact of investment behaviour from the perspective of performance conditions of the exercise of the right, and the only relevant studies are mainly based on the perspective of incentive motivation to study the impact of equity incentives on the efficiency of investment. They believe that incentive motivation can improve the efficiency of investment, while the implementation of equity incentives of non-incentive motivation worsens the efficiency of investment. Existing studies mainly suffer from the following shortcomings: (1)Fewer studies reveal the mechanism of the impact of exercise performance conditions on investment behaviour from the perspective of the mediating effect of risk-taking; (2)Most of the existing studies conclude that equity incentives have a linear relationship with investment efficiency, and do not propose an appropriate value for exercise performance conditions; (3)Most of the existing studies measure investment efficiency in terms of overall efficiency and fewer of them conduct path analyses from the perspective of overinvestment and underinvestment, respectively; and (4)The existing studies rarely include a number of different elements of incentive schemes in the same framework for discussion. Based on these, this paper examines the impact of different vesting conditions on firms' investment behaviour and the mediating role of risk-taking, as well as the moderating role of the exercise period and the equity incentive mode. The following research hypotheses are proposed: Hypothesis H1: The effect of exercise performance conditions on firms' investment efficiency shows an inverted U-shaped relationship. Hypothesis H2: Risk taking has a mediating effect on the effect of performance conditions on investment efficiency. Hypothesis H3: Exercise period has a significant positive moderating effect between exercise performance conditions and investment efficiency, and exercise period strengthens the inverted U-shaped relationship between exercise performance conditions and investment efficiency. Hypothesis H4: Stock option incentives are more conducive to investment behaviour than restricted stock incentives, as evidenced by the stronger performance of stock options in the role of exercise performance conditions in stimulating overinvestment and mitigating underinvestment.
Sample selection and data source of this paper are: A-share listed companies that implement equity incentive plans in China from 2009 to 2020 are taken as the research samples. And we do the following data processing: (1)Excluding the financial and insurance companies, ST and ^*ST companies; (2)Deleting the sample that adopts two incentive modes at the same time; (3)Deleting some samples that adopt the indicators of the growth rate of main business income, EVA, etc.; (4)Deleting the samples that incentivise only the core technical staff, finally selecting the samples of 1568, and using the software of data analysis in Stata16.0. From the perspective of risk-taking intermediary the paper analyses the influence mechanism of executive exercise performance conditions on the company's investment behaviour. The results show that: The impact of exercise performance conditions on firm investment efficiency has an inverted U-shaped relationship and derives the inflection point of the curve (optimal exercise performance conditions), revealing that risk-taking has a mediating effect between exercise performance conditions and firm investment efficiency, and that the exercise period has a significant positive moderating effect between exercise performance conditions and investment efficiency, i.e., the exercise period strengthens the inverted U-shaped relationship between exercise performance conditions and investment efficiency; Compared with restricted stock, the stock option mode encourages executives' risk-taking ability more, which may mitigate underinvestment due to risk aversion to some extent, but may also exacerbate overinvestment.
This paper enriches the research on the relationship between equity incentives and investment behaviour, proposes a risk-taking path for the impact of exercise performance conditions on investment behaviour, provides a theoretical explanation for the existing controversy over the conclusions on the impact of equity incentives on investment behaviour, and refines and deepens the research on the relationship between equity incentives and investment behaviour in terms of exercise period and equity incentive mode. The study provides some managerial insights: (1)Only by setting appropriate exercise performance conditions can the investment efficiency of enterprises be improved; (2)Reasonably determining the exercise period of equity incentives can effectively coordinate the contradiction of conflicting goals between shareholders and operators, and improve the investment efficiency of enterprises; (3)For underinvested enterprises should try to choose the stock option mode to reduce their risk aversion and be motivate to be bold enough to develop new projects and investments, so as to alleviate the underinvestment of enterprises.

Key words: exercise performance conditions, investment behavior, risk-taking, exercise period, equity incentive mode

摘要： 本文以2009—2020年我国实施股权激励的A股上市公司作为研究样本,从风险承担中介视角分析了高管行权业绩条件对公司投资行为的影响机制。结果表明:行权业绩条件与投资效率之间呈现倒U型关系并求出了拐点,风险承担在两者间起到中介作用。进一步研究发现:行权期会强化行权业绩条件与投资效率的倒U型关系;与限制性股票相比,股票期权在严格的行权业绩条件刺激过度投资和缓解投资不足方面作用更强。本文研究丰富了股权激励与投资行为的关系研究,提出了行权业绩条件对投资行为影响的风险承担路径,为现有关于股权激励对投资行为影响的结论争议提供了一种理论解释,并从行权期和股权激励模式两方面细化和深入了股权激励与投资行为之间的关系研究。

关键词: 行权业绩条件, 投资行为, 风险承担, 行权期, 股权激励模式