Can we-media information disclosure drive listed companies' innovation?—From the perspective of financing constraints

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate to what extent the amount, information source and the content of the microblog information disclosure of listed companies could impact on innovation from the perspective of financing constraints. Design/methodology/approach - The propensity score matching (PSM) and two-stage least square (2SLS) are used in estimations to deal with the endogeneity problem. Findings - Evidence shows that the amount of we-media information disclosure significantly drives the innovation of enterprises. The mechanism is that we-media information disclosure drives the innovation by easing the financing constraints and bringing funds to the R&D activities. Further research shows that only the original information can drive the innovation. In particular, the R&D information promotes the R&D input and innovation output more significantly. Practical implications - The conclusion of this paper provides a reference for the listed companies to drive innovation with the help of we-media information disclosure, a new solution for the small and medium-sized listed companies in China which have difficulty in carrying out innovation activities due to financing constrains and also provides useful practical enlightenment for the government and the capital market regulatory authorities to issue relevant policies to regulate we-media information disclosure. Originality/value - This paper introduces a new information disclosure channel--we-media into the research on influencing factors of innovation and discusses the influence of the amount, different sources and disclosure contents from we-media on enterprise innovation, which enriches the existing research on enterprise innovation influencing factors, providing a new perspective for driving enterprises to innovate.