Executives’ Academic Experience And Corporate Innovation

Along with the Chinese reform and opening-up policy,many staff members of institutions have entered the enterprise or went into business,a large number of which are college teachers or researchers with academic experience,forming a peculiar phenomenon of “wenren xiahai” in China.In the “18th CPC National Congress”,China officially proposed an innovationdriven development strategy.In the “19th CPC National Congress”,the government required to establish a technological innovation system that is enterprise-oriented,market-guided,and deeply integrated with industry,academia and research.In order to promote the effective implementation of the strategy,the government has issued a series of school-enterprise cooperation policies,which encourage college teachers and researchers to work part-time in enterprises and promote innovation development of enterprises.When such people with academic experience enter the enterprise and serve as corporate executives,what impact will they have on the company,especially for the corporate innovation? Few studies have explored these questions.In addition,the effectiveness of these school-enterprise cooperation policies,industryuniversity-research integration policies on corporate innovation lack of evidence from scientific research.To solve the above questions,based on the A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen and the relevant data during 2008-2014,using empirical research and text analysis method,this paper examines the influence of academic experience of the executives on corporate innovation.More deeply,this paper studies the impact of different industry on this relationship,as well as the professional background and positions of academic executives on corporate innovation.Further,this paper explores the internal mechanism that executives’ academic experience affects corporate innovation.We also considered two situational factors,namely executives’ stock ownership,the degree of external competition and their moderating role.The results show that the executives’ academic experience significantly promotes the corporate innovation input and output,especially for the high quality innovation output.After controlling R&D investment,the impact on innovation output is still significant.The academic experience of executives can play a positive role in the corporate innovation in both innovative and noninnovative industries,but it is more significant in the innovative industry.Considering the professional background of academic executives and dividing it into technical and non-technical background,it is found that technical background of academic executives play guiding,consulting and suggestive roles,effectively helping enterprises solve technical problems in the innovation process and thus promote the corporate innovative output and efficiency.However,the non-technical background of academic executives recognize the importance of innovation and innovation investment from the overall management point and thus promote the corporate innovation investment.Considering the positions of academic executives and dividing them into the roles of chairman and general manager and other positions.We find that academic executives who serve as chairman or general manager can play a positive role in corporate innovation input and output due to their job rights.The positive influence of academic executives in other positions on innovation will not be realized in the short term due to the existence of socialization effects.However,it will be realized in the long run.The above results are still established after the endogenous and robust test.Through two mediation effect test methods,this paper finds that the academic experience of executives affects corporate innovation input and output by influencing the executives’ innovative attention.Finally,this paper examines the moderating role of executive ownership and external competition.It is found that the relationship between executives’ academic experience and executives’ innovation attention is significant in companies which executives hold the share,while the relationship between executives’ innovative attention and the corporate innovation input is positively moderated by external competition.In summary,this paper discusses the influence of executives’ academic experience on the corporate innovation input and output,and discovers the partially intermediary role of executives’ innovative attention,and the moderating role of executives’ ownership and external competition.It expands the researches about the upper-echelon theory and the researches which find the influencing factors of corporate innovation.Also,it provides a decisionmaking reference for the country’s and corporate technology innovation policy to enhance their independent innovation capabilities.