In addition, due to the absence of SOE owners in China, the executives, who hold the important investment decision-making rights of firms, play a crucial role in the investment efficiency of firms. On the one hand, executives may conduct rent-seeking and invest free cash flow in non-profit projects in order to seek personal gains (e.g., political promotion, etc.) which results in an inefficient investment expansion. On the other hand, executives′ personal professional experience and background can also be reflected in investment decisions. Thus, they also make rational investment decisions based on their professional and technical background.

Domestic and foreign scholars make a series of research on investment efficiency based the agency theory and asymmetric information theory, and research scopes from the enterprise external government intervention, legal governance environment, the relationship between the corporate banking to the internal corporate governance, equity incentive, executive personal characteristics. However, as two important aspects that affect the investment efficiency, the nature of state-owned enterprises and characteristics of senior executives, which is the decisive factor of SOE′s investment efficiency? That is to say, the nature of state-owned enterprises or the characteristics of senior executives plays the dominant role in investment efficiency of SOEs. So far, we do not know this answer.

In order to answer the above question, this paper uses the sample of executive turnover data from 2003 to 2013 of SOEs and empirically tests the influence of the type change of state-owned enterprises and the type change of senior management on the investment efficiency of enterprises. The empirical results show that if the state-owned enterprises change the nature from market-oriented (state-owned enterprises holding) to administrative-oriented (government holding), or the executives change the characteristic from non-administrative background to administrative background, the investment efficiency of enterprises will be decreased. If the executives change the characteristic from non-professional background to professional background, the investment efficiency of the enterprise will be increased. Taking the differentiation of enterprise types into consideration, it is found that in administrative-oriented SOEs, changes the executives′ administrative background having a deeper impact on investment efficiency, while in market-oriented SOEs, changes the executives′ professional background having a deeper impact on investment efficiency. In addition, compared with the characteristics of executives, the nature of SOEs has a more dominant impact on investment efficiency. Overall, our results can help us to further deepen the reform of the SOEs and provide useful guidance of SOEs management personnel selection.

We suggest that the relation between the nature of state-owned enterprises, characteristics of senior executives and SOE′s investment efficiency for the following reasons.

First, if the state-owned enterprises change the nature from market-oriented to administrative-oriented, why does the investment efficiency of enterprises decrease? Compared to administrative SOEs, market-oriented SOEs whose direct controlling shareholder are SOEs, are much less administrative. And they are given the rights, such as autonomy right and the right to control retained earnings, etc. by the government. So their behavior is relatively market-oriented and their executives are more motivated. Moreover, the performance of market-oriented SOEs directly affect parent company′s performance, at the same time, parent company has the incentive to supervise its market-oriented SOEs, which lead to more efficient investment. Therefore, when faced with investment decisions, administrative SOEs may gravitate towards non-economic government targets under the influence of government policy, while market-oriented SOEs are separated from some of their non-economic objectives and face market competition more directly.

Second, if the executives change their characteristic from non-administrative background to administrative background, why does the investment efficiency of enterprises decrease? The investment decisions faced by the executives of state-owned enterprises in China are guided by the government policies and even subject to the government′s governance objectives. Moreover, the non-economic objectives of state-owned enterprises also determine that in addition to normal production and operation activities, SOEs should undertake non-economic objectives such as employment and taxation. Administrative executives, who are influenced by the environment, are more likely to complete these goals through non-efficiency investments. In addition, under the influence of decentralization competition, local government officials get promoted by stimulating GDP growth. So there is an opportunistic tendency of excessive investment, which may transfer the motivation to the state-owned enterprise executives under local government officials′ control.

Third, if the executives change their characteristic from administrative background to non-administrative background, why does the investment efficiency of enterprises increase? Scholars have also conducted a series of studies on the impact of senior executives′ professional background characteristics on investment, among which, based on the "financial skills perspective", scholars have showed the impact of senior executives′ professional background characteristics on investment. Custódio et al. state that executives with finance backgrounds can respond more flexibly to professional decisions. Because they have more financial theory knowledge during their careers and long-term practice, which makes them better able to understand and apply this knowledge. Scholars Graham et al., MAO Xinshu and others also believe that executives with professional backgrounds can have a deeper understanding of the financial status of enterprises and financial policies. According to Fortune 500 enterprises, Jensen et al. find that executives with financial and technical background can bring more diversified investment methods to enterprises and improve the investment efficiency. Graham et al. show that executives with MBA degree are more familiar with investment models and can apply them skillfully, which in turn leads to more rational investment decisions.

Therefore, SOEs should select appropriate executives according to their own development needs and government arrangements. Executives with administrative backgrounds can be selected to implement government policies and arrangements, while executives with professional backgrounds can be selected to improve their operating conditions and enhance their investment efficiency.

The research contribution of this paper may be mainly reflected in the following three aspects:

First, this paper first empirically analyzes which of the two influencing factors, the nature of state-owned enterprises and the characteristics of senior executives, has the dominant influence on SOEs′ investment efficiency, and the research conclusion provides the direction for state-owned enterprises to improve investment efficiency in a more targeted way in the near future.

Second, firms and executives in the literature on the influence of investment efficiency is often based on static perspective, and with the help of the SOEs′ executives turnover background, this paper adopted the Change Model and difference-in-difference (DID) Model, empirically studying the effect of firm nature and executive characteristics on SOE investment efficiency from a dynamic perspective. The empirical results, to a certain extent, control the effect of endogenous, and they provide new evidence of understanding the nature of the state-owned enterprises and executive characteristics of enterprise economic consequences.

Third, the SOEs′ executives take double roles of "economic people" and "political people". Previous research will always mix together two kinds of identities to analyze the impact on the investment efficiency. But, in this paper, it divides the double roles, that is the administrative-background executive reflects the identity of "political person", and professional-background executive reflects the identity of "economic person". Empirical results are more in line with the actual situation and it contributes to the evaluation of previous related literatures.