Abstract:  In recent years, characteristics and pay gap of top management team (TMT), the factors that impose impact on decision-making efficiency, have been a hot issue in research field of TMT. Most existing researches focus on TMT’s work experience, education background, tenure time and pay gap. There is still a lack of research on the influence of TMT characteristics on new venture performance (NVP) and the moderating effect that pay gap plays in it. This paper aims to explore how TMT characteristics affect NVP through the moderating role of pay gap. Therefore, the hypotheses of the relationships among TMT characteristics, pay gap and NVP are proposed，and a theoretical model is built up to analyze the impact of TMT characteristics and pay gaps on NVP. A regression analysis is employed to test these hypotheses with data collected from 406 listed new ventures on growth enterprises market (GEM) in China between 2012 and 2014. The results show that average education level, social capital, oversea background and pay gap of TMT have a positive influence on NVP respectively, and average age and professional background heterogeneity of TMT have a negative influence on NVP. Furthermore, pay gap plays moderating effect in the impacts of average education level and professional background heterogeneity of TMT respectively on NVP. This paper makes a theoretical analysis and empirical research on the impact of TMT characteristics and pay gap on NVP. At the same time, it discusses the moderating effect of pay gap in the influence of TMT characteristics on NVP, and obtains the following 6 conclusions.Firstly, the average age of TMT members has a negative impact on NVP, that is, the greater the average age of TMT is, the less conducive it is to improving NVP. Most companies listed on the GEM are characterized by high growth and innovation. Although older TMT members have richer management experience and higher ability to cope with market risks, they are relatively conservative in making strategic decisions. Therefore, the innovative and adventurous young TMT is more conducive to the growth of start-ups.Secondly, the average education level of TMT has a positive impact on NVP, which shows companies on China’s GEM have higher academic requirements for TMT. Managers with higher academic qualifications tend to have a relatively stronger learning ability and can adapt to the ever-changing market conditions and competitive environment more quickly.Thirdly, the professional background heterogeneity of TMT has a negative impact on NVP. That is to say, the smaller the professional background heterogeneity of TMT is, the better performance TMT can obtain. Since most GEM-listed companies are engaged in high-tech industries, and with the fast speed of technical progress, new technologies such as new energy, artificial intelligence, 3D printing put forward higher requirements for the professional background of TMT member. The same or similar professional backgrounds of TMT members are more beneficial to mutual communication and can push forward the rapid growth of the company.Fourthly, TMT’s social capital has a positive impact on NVP. Under the fierce competitive market environment, TMTs with rich social capital can obtain national and regional policy information and key resources in advance, so that the company’s strategy and tactics can be dynamically and timely adjusted.Fifthly, the oversea background of TMT has a positive impact on NVP. Foreign TMT members or those with oversea work experience can bring advanced foreign technology and management experience to the company, which helps TMT to think about issues from different economic and cultural backgrounds, thus enhancing the company’s international vision.Finally, the pay gap plays moderating effect in the impact of TMT characteristics on NVP. Pay gap has weakened the impact of average education level on NVP. The average education level reflects the difference between the education levels of TMT members. If pay gap between TMT members is too large, it will reduce the enthusiasm of those members with lower pay, thus affecting the unity and cooperation among TMT members. Pay gap has weakened the impact of professional background heterogeneity on NVP. Executive’s pay should be matched with individual ability. Different salary standards for TMT members with different professional backgrounds will lead to negative psychological emotions, which will weaken the cohesiveness and execution of the team and reduce the company performance.When setting up TMT, entrepreneurs should try to choose young talents with high education level and low heterogeneity in professional background. Compared with older executives, their young peers are more determined when making strategic decisions, so they are able to quickly grasp market trends. Therefore, efforts should be made to recruit highly educated TMT members, and in the meanwhile to strengthen professional training and to enhance the learning ability for existing executive members. In the initial growth stage of the start-ups, they should vigorously develop the main business. When setting up the TMT, they should consider introducing more members who are proficient in the main business, laying the foundation for the company to quickly obtain market share. Furthermore, venture companies should try to choose talents with rich social capital and oversea background when building up their TMTs, because they can bring a large number of partners to the company, which is conducive to business promotion of the enterprises. Executives with oversea backgrounds may have thoughts that are different from their domestic peers, and can analyze market changes from different angles. At the same time, foreign advanced technology can make enterprises unique in the main business field, thus make enterprises more competitive.This study contributes to developing the theory of TMT’s impact on enterprise performance. Especially, this study has implications for improving NVP by optimizing TMT characteristics. The shortcoming of this study is the selection of the TMT characteristic variables. Only the quantifiable indicators are chosen and some variables that are not easy to quantify such as personality and value orientation of psychological characteristic are not used. In the future research, the psychological characteristics variables should be considered in the regression model so as to analyze the impacts of the TMT characteristics on NVP more systematically and deeply.

Key words: growth enterprises market, top management team characteristics, pay gap, enterprise performance