本研究は，株主と従業員の間の内部資源配分の問題に焦点を当て，企業の財務政策と人的資源管理の交差領域を理論的・実証的に検討するものである。研究成果として，以下の2本の学術論文が発表された。(1) 企業と従業員の関係および企業価値。(1) 企業と従業員の関係と企業価値：企業年金制度の重要な役割 (Securities Analysts Journal, 60(1)), (2) Pension Return Assumptions and Shareholder-Employee Risk-Shifting (Journal of Corporate Finance, 70)の2本の論文を発表した。各論文の内容の概要は以下の通りである。最初の論文は，「環境・社会・ガバナンス（ESG）」投資の「社会（S）」の側面を論じる上で，企業と従業員の関係と企業価値の関係は，学者と実務家の双方にとって特に興味深いものであることを論じている。既存研究では，企業と従業員の強い関係は，主要な従業員の採用や維持に役立ち，従業員のモチベーションやコミットメントを高めることによって，企業価値を向上させることができるとされている。本論文では，企業の財務戦略の一環として，企業年金制度が長期的な企業-従業員関係の管理に果たす役割に焦点を当てる。第二の論文は，年金制度の運用方針を観察することで，企業固有の人的資本を高めるために，経営者がビジネスモデルや企業と従業員の関係を管理する際の主要な「動機」であるリスクシフト（内部融資）またはリスクマネジメントが明らかになることを論じたものである。リスクシフトの動機を持つ経営者は，年金積立不足を利用した従業員からの柔軟な内部資金調達を行うために，高い年金資産に対する期待収益率（ERR）を選択する。また，リスク管理の動機を持つ経営者は，年金の積立状況を改善することによって将来のキャッシュフローの不確実性を低減するために，低いERRを選択する。本論文では， ERRが高いほど，研究開発費および／または資金不足の企業のMarket to Book Ratioが高くなることが予測され，ERRの高い内部資金調達のリスクシフトチャネルが過小投資の問題を緩和するのに役立つことが示唆された。
Focusing on the issue of internal resource allocation between shareholders and employees, this study empirically examines the intersection area between corporate financial policy and human resource management. As the research outputs, the following two academic papers were published: (1) "The Firm-Employee Relationship and Firm Value: The Significant Role of Corporate Pension Plan Policies" (Securities Analysts Journal, Vol.60-1), (2) "Pension Return Assumptions and Shareholder-Employee Risk-Shifting" (Journal of Corporate Finance, Vol. 70). A summary of the content of each paper is as follows. The first paper discusses that the relationship between the firm-employee relationship and firm value is of particular interest to both academics and practitioners in discussing the "Social (S)" aspect of the "Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG)" investing. Existing studies suggest that a strong firm-employee relationship can improve firm value by helping recruit/retain key employees and by enhancing worker motivation and commitments. This paper focuses on the role of a firm's corporate pension plan policy in managing the long-run firm-employee relationship as a part of its overall corporate financial strategy. The second paper discusses how observed pension plan management policies reveal the managers' primary "motives" – risk-shifting (internal financing) or risk –management – in managing their business models and firm-employee relationships to enhance the firm-specific human capital. Especially, this paper focuses that firm managers of defined-benefit (DB) pension plan sponsors reveal their primary motives — risk-shifting or risk-management — through their assumed expected rates of return (ERRs) on the plan assets. Managers with risk-shifting motives choose high ERRs to exploit flexible internal financing from employees via pension underfunding. Those with risk-management motives choose low ERRs to reduce future cash-flow uncertainty by improving the pension funding status. This paper examines if ERRs predict the firms' future cash-flow allocation between pension funding and corporate investments, in a Japanese sample that mitigates the selection bias concern for US DB plan sponsors. Using dynamic panel regressions that control for lagged dependent variables, firms' business prospects, and unobserved fixed effects, this paper show that higher ERRs precede higher capital investments, R&D expenses, and net pension obligations while revealing managerial aggression, especially among firms with high external financing costs. Higher ERRs predict higher market-to-book ratios for the firms with larger R&Ds and/or underfunding, suggesting that the risk-shifting channel of internal financing with high ERRs can help alleviate underinvestment problems.
|
