海归技术高管与企业创新

张正勇

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科研管理 ›› 2021, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (2) : 171-180.

论文

海归技术高管与企业创新

张正勇¹，胡言言²

作者信息 +

Returned technology executives and enterprise innovation

Zhang Zhengyong¹, Hu Yanyan²

Author information +

文章历史 +

摘要

本文通过手工收集整理2008—2016年A股高新技术行业上市公司创新专利数据，基于高阶梯队理论实证考察了海归技术高管对企业创新的影响效应及机理。研究发现：海归技术高管对企业创新具有显著的促进作用，且相较于渐进性创新，海归技术高管对企业突破性创新促进作用更强，这一效应在控制内生性和自选择问题后依然成立；通过产权性质分组分析发现，相较于非国有企业，海归技术高管对国有企业创新的正向影响更为显著；对机理渠道的探索表明，海归技术高管可以通过提供专业知识来提高管理层多元化水平，从而减轻管理层短视行为促进企业创新。研究在理论上拓展和深化了企业高管与创新的研究，在实践上凸显了海归技术高管人力资本的重要性，对于企业人才引进政策具有一定的指导意义。

Abstract

Technological innovation is an essential driver of one nation′s economic growth and one of the fatal elements for achieving sustainable economic development. China is trying to transform its economic growth model from an export-driven economy to an innovation-driven one since the strategy of copying, relying on, and following developed countries′ models is no longer suitable for the current market environment. Only innovation can enhance its core competitiveness. One nation′s independent innovation centers on enterprise innovation. Meanwhile, enterprise innovation mainly depends on talents. In China, experiences of studying or working overseas are a specific form of human capital. It is a sign of having a good educational background or professional knowledge and skills.

Entrepreneurs and senior management teams of enterprises play leading roles in innovation. Having the willingness to innovate is not enough to be successful in innovation, however. It is also necessary to have innovative minds and the abilities to combine all drivers of innovation. To coordinate production, education, and research is one of the essential abilities. Returned technology executives (RTE) are senior management team members of enterprises who have experience studying or working outside China. They usually experienced research and development experience (R&D), production, or design in foreign institutes. Many listed enterprises favor them because they may have innovation abilities. Existing literature has examined the influencing factors of corporate innovation from multiple perspectives. Those factors include, for example, corporate governance, financing constraints, core employee equity incentives, the gender of executives, alumni relationship network of executives, and inventor experience of executives. No authors have studied the relationship between RTE and enterprise innovation, however.

We hypothesize the relationship between RTE and enterprise innovation as follows. Firstly, based on the Upper Echelons Theory, we describe the influence of RTE on enterprise innovation. Secondly, we analyze the difference between the RTE′ roles in the innovation of state-owned and non-state-owned enterprises. Lastly, we use the patent data of high-tech companies listed in the Shanghai Stock Exchange from 2008 to 2016 to test the relationship between RTE and enterprise innovation rigorously.

The empirical results show that returnee technical executives have a significant and positive effect on enterprise innovation. Meanwhile, RTE have more vital roles in promoting the enterprises′ breakthrough innovation than incremental innovation. Moreover, the empirical results are steady when ruling in the endogenous effect and self-selection effect. We also find that a positive effect of RTE on the innovation of the state-owned enterprises is more significant than that of non- state-owned enterprises when regrouping the data through property rights. Lastly, the research on the internal mechanism shows that RTE can improve the level of management diversification by their professional knowledge to promote enterprise innovation, which can decrease the management short-eyesight behavior.

The paper has two contributions. Firstly, it contributes to the literature by incorporating RTE′s professional background in R&D, production or design, and enterprises′ property right data to investigate RTE′ impact on corporate innovation. The existing literature is short of such analyses. The contribution will expand the research content and perspectives of corporate executives and innovation and deepen the theoretical knowledge in the RTE′ innovation effect. Secondly, the paper crystallizes the mechanism of the role of RTE in enterprise innovation and provides new empirical evidence for the state, local governments, and enterprises. The evidence will help policymakers improve innovation incentive mechanisms and the institutional environment and optimize the corporate governance mechanism. The paper also offers policy recommendations to ensure that RTE can bring in the positive effect of enterprise innovation and shed light on the good uses of RTE for governments and enterprises.

导出引用

张正勇, 胡言言. 海归技术高管与企业创新[J]. 科研管理. 2021, 42(2): 171-180

Zhang Zhengyong, Hu Yanyan. Returned technology executives and enterprise innovation[J]. Science Research Management. 2021, 42(2): 171-180

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基金

国家自然科学基金：“企业社会责任信息价值及其作用机理研究——基于呈报格式和使用者认知的视角”（71402068,2015.01—2017.12）；教育部人文社会科学研究规划基金：“海归技术高管与企业创新：理论机理与实证研究”（19YJA630120,2019.01—2021.12）；江苏高校哲学社会科学研究基金：“高管海外背景对企业环境治理的影响研究”（2018SJA0241,2018.06—2020.06）；江苏省青蓝工程资助项目。