Abstract:   The talent is a key factor of production to stimulate economic innovation. Whether private enterprises can increase talent attraction through mixed ownership reform is a key issue that needs to be answered in the process of promoting the development and expansion of private economy. This study selected the private listed companies from 2008 to 2019 as research samples, used the OLS model and mediating effect model to empirically test the promotion effect and influence path of mixed ownership reform on the staffing of high-level talents in private enterprises. The results showed that when the state-owned shareholders involved in mixed ownership reform are central enterprises or they are shorter from the pyramid control chain of the government, the promotion effect is more significant. The path of the promotion effect is to reduce redundancy in private enterprises, improve salary incentive levels, and accelerate the development of enterprises. Cross-sectional analysis found that state-owned shareholders mainly optimized the staffing of high-level talent in private enterprises without a history of state-owned enterprises or with a short history of enterprises, and promoted the introduction of high-level talent in underdeveloped areas and non-capital resourcedependent private enterprises. Finally, state-owned shareholders strengthened the innovation output of private enterprises by promoting the staffing of high-level talents. The research results proved that state-owned shareholders have human resource support effect on private enterprises, and optimizing the staffing of high-level talents is an important theoretical path to explain the innovation effect of mixed ownership reform in private enterprises. It will provide a reform reference for achieving a competitive development environment for private enterprises to obtain talents and achieve high-quality development.

Key words: mixed ownership, private enterprise, high-level talent, enterprise innovation