What Affects the Corporate Performance of Listed Companies in China’s Agriculture and Forestry Industry?

Abstract

China is embarking on a new journey to build a comprehensive socialist modern state in the new era. Modernization of agriculture and forestry is the basis of agricultural modernization, but China’s traditional agriculture and forestry industry are facing a more serious crisis of independent research and innovation. As the listed agroforestry companies are directly facing the demands of the market, it becomes essential to study the technological innovation of listed agroforestry companies. Therefore, this paper investigates the relationship between R&D innovation, corporate management, supply chain management, growth capacity, debt servicing capacity, and corporate performance of listed agroforestry companies. Based on the annual panel data of agroforestry listed companies in the CSMAR database from 2010–2021, the empirical study was conducted using panel PVAR models, OLS, 2SLS, LIML, and GMM estimation. The findings show that: (1) Granger causes affecting the supply chain management of listed companies in agroforestry are corporate management, debt servicing capacity, and growth capacity. Granger causes affecting the debt servicing capacity of listed companies in the agroforestry industry are R&D innovation, growth capacity, and corporate performance. Among them, there is a causal influence relationship between debt servicing capacity and corporate performance. (2) R&D innovation, corporate management, supply chain management, growth capacity, debt servicing capacity, and corporate performance contribute the most to its own impulse response, with an average contribution of 87.4%, 81.8%, 86.9%, 96.9%, 86.5%, and 94.7%, respectively. Compared to the other variables, the impulse response contribution of debt servicing capacity to corporate performance was the largest. (3) When supply chain management and growth capability play a fully mediating role, there is a significant positive effect of R&D innovation on corporate performance. Finally, we offer some policy recommendations and suggestions to the Chinese government, as well as some suggestions on how Chinese-listed companies in the agroforestry industry can improve their corporate performance. This paper provides a Chinese case study on the corporate performance of listed companies in the global agroforestry industry.