Abstract:

Employees are the source of corporate innovation. Can the attitude and behavior of corporate towards employees serve as a direction for enterprise innovation? There is no consensus on the relationship between employee friendliness and corporate innovation in the extant literature, and there is a lack of objective and effective measure of employee friendliness. To fill this research gap, based upon Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, this paper constructs a measure of employee friendliness by means of textual analysis and machine learning based on annual reports of A-share listed companies in China in 2001 and 2022. Then, it discusses and tests the influence of employee friendliness on corporate innovation based on the hierarchy theory for the first time. The empirical results show that employee friendliness has a positive impact on the number of granted patents and applied patents, and this effect is more significant for corporates with a higher employee education level and reside in areas with greater outside work opportunities. Further mechanism analysis shows that employee friendliness raises individual employee’s innovation efficiency and cooperation of teams in the corporate. Among the various dimensions of employee friendliness, the dimensions of humanistic concern, promotion, and self-actualization have a stronger promoting effect on enterprise innovation. Under the background of implementing the strategy on nourishing talents in the new era, this paper enriches the research in areas related to employee motivation and corporate innovation, confirms the critical role that employees play in the high quality and sustainable developments of corporate, reveals the importance of efficiency and cooperation in corporate development, and sheds lights on corporate policy in building relationships with employees.

Key words:

employee friendliness, corporate innovation, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, textual analysis

摘要：

员工是企业创造力的源泉，企业对待员工的态度和行为是否可以作为企业创新的方向标？学界对员工友好与创新关系的研究尚无一致的结论，且对员工友好度缺乏客观有效的度量方法。针对此研究缺口，基于马斯洛需求理论，以2001~2022年中国 A 股上市公司年报内容为对象，采用文本分析和机器学习方法构建出员工友好度指标，基于需求层次视角阐述和实证检验了员工友好度对企业创新的影响与机制。研究发现，员工友好度有助于提高企业的授权专利数和专利申请数，显著促进企业提升创新产出，且当员工学历水平越高、企业所在地外部工作机会越多时，员工友好度对企业创新的提升作用越易发挥。进一步机制分析表明，员工友好度显著提高了员工个体的创新效率和团队的合作水平。在员工友好的各维度中，员工人文关怀、晋升和自我实现维度对企业创新的促进作用更强。本文丰富了员工激励和企业创新相关领域的研究，证实了员工在企业高质量和可持续发展中的关键作用，揭示出重效率、谋合作才能促发展，在新时代加快建设人才强国战略背景下，对企业建立与员工的良好关系具有一定微观政策启示。

关键词:

员工友好度, 企业创新, 马斯洛需求理论, 文本分析