Abstract: This paper aims to study whether the persistence of technological innovation has an effect on firm performance. Based on the related theory, this paper proposes some hypotheses related to the influence of the persistence of technological innovation on firm performance and the moderating effect of diversification intensity on above relationship. The empirical data contains 201 Chinese manufacturing listed firms during the period from 2006 to 2014. The results indicate that: (1) compared to the persistence of explorative innovation, Chinese firms put more emphasis on the persistence of exploitative innovation; (2) the persistence of innovation has an inverted U-shaped influence on firm performance, and this relationship is deeper in firms with high level of diversification intensity; (3) the input persistence of innovation has a positive impact on the output persistence of innovation, however the synergy of the two types persistence of innovation has no significant influence on firm performance.

Key words: technological innovation persistence, firm performance, diversification intensity, Chinese manufacturing listed firms