Tech-based SMEs are important subjects for achieving national innovation-driven development, and it is crucial to study whether and how changes in the macro-institutional environment affect their innovation efficiency. New Asset Management Regulation ( NAMR ) is a policy promulgated by the Chinese government to address the chaotic expansion of shadow banking in China, and this study treats it as a quasi-natural experiment, selecting a sample of Chinese GEM-listed firms from 2015 to 2019, adopting the event study method and the generalized double difference method, and empirically testing the impact of shadow banking contraction on the innovation efficiency of Chinese tech-based SMEs and its mechanism. This study finds that shadow banking contraction under the NAMR significantly improves innovation efficiency of tech-based SMEs. The mechanism test finds that the NAMR can optimize the debt financing structure of tech-based SMEs, reduce their financing costs and financing risks, and ultimately accelerate their innovation efficiency by improving their financing efficiency, which supports the hypothesis of “financing efficiency view”; it is further found that, to tech-based SMEs, the more they rely on shadow banking and the severer financing constraints they endure, the more obvious NAMR ’s effect is on improving innovation efficiency. The findings not only provide some empirical evidence to clarify the controversy of shadow banking in China from the perspective of firm innovation, but also have some implications for the subsequent financial regulatory reform.

PurposeIn recent years, environmental issues and resource depletion have posed significant challenges to firms and society. To address these environmental challenges, firms seek to build strategic alliances of green supply chain management (GSCM) with their supply chain partner. As the largest developing country in the Asia–Pacific region, China needs to take more responsibility for environmental protection, which requires more Chinese firms to participate in GSCM. Therefore, focusing on the issue of GSCM and innovation persistence in the context of an increasingly harsh ecological environment is essential.Design/methodology/approachTo test the hypothesis, the authors perform an empirical analysis on a sample of 124 listed firms in China from 2014 to 2019. The results are robust to a battery of robustness analyses the authors performed to take care of endogeneity.FindingsEmpirical results indicate that GSCM can promote innovation persistence and both market environment turbulence and technology environment turbulence have a positive moderating effect on the relationship between the two. Mechanism tests show that GSCM can improve innovation efficiency, ensure innovation quality and alleviate financing constraints, thus promoting the innovation persistence of firms.Originality/valueThis study can provide a theoretical basis for the country to promote GSCM orientation, raise firms' awareness of the value of GSCM, convey the significance of GSCM to investors, influence firms' investment decisions and give experience to other developing countries.

Because of the long cycle of innovation, more investment, high risk and other characteristics, Chinese innovative firms tend to have a higher degree of information asymmetry, leading to frequent stock price ‘flash crashes’. This study investigates the impact of innovation information disclosure on stock price crash risk by examining the supervisory effect and insurance effect of innovation information disclosure for Growth Enterprises Market(GEM)‐listed firms in China from 2015 to 2019. We find that innovation information disclosure helps reduce firms' future stock price crash risk. The mechanism test finds that innovation information disclosure can exert both supervisory and insurance effects to reduce stock price crash risk. Specifically, after dividing innovation information disclosure into three categories: innovation advantage, content and risk disclosure, a vertical comparison reveals that the insurance effect of innovation advantage disclosure is more significant than the supervisory effect, while the opposite is true for innovation risk disclosure; a horizontal comparison reveals that the supervisory effect of innovation advantage, content and risk disclosure increases and the insurance effect decreases in order. The more types of innovation information disclosure, the more significant the effect of reducing stock price crash risk. Further analysis finds that the inhibitory effect of innovation information disclosure on stock price crash risk is stronger in firms with higher agency costs and higher innovation intensity in the industry. Our research has some insights into how to reduce the stock price crash risk of innovative companies in China.