The Influence Of Executives’ Academic Experience On Enterprise Innovation

In recent years,China is in a critical period of economic transformation.It is the focus of current economic development to take enterprises as the main body of innovation activities,actively improve the strength of scientific and technological innovation,and accelerate the construction of an innovation-oriented country.At the same time,senior executives of Chinese enterprises have the talent phenomenon of ‘scholar-turned businessmen’ with Chinese characteristics.As one of the characteristics of senior executives,the academic experience of senior executives plays a crucial role in the operation and management of enterprises.However,most of the existing literatures focus on the influence of executives’ age,gender,political background,overseas background and other characteristics on enterprise innovation,and pay little attention to the factor of executives’ academic experience.On the one hand,the academic experience of senior executives may promote corporate innovation.Academic experience,as a kind of work experience,has the innovation attribute that makes individuals form the innovation consciousness and exploration spirit,and brings abundant human capital for enterprises.In addition,academic experience makes senior executives better at establishing a scientific and standardized enterprise internal control system and delivering positive signals to external stakeholders,which also alleviates information asymmetry and financing constraints.On the other hand,executives’ academic experience may also have a restraining effect on corporate innovation.Academic experience makes senior executives develop a rigorous and prudent thinking model.Long-term focus on professional research may make their thinking increasingly ‘pedantic’.Combined with relatively conservative organizational culture such as universities and scientific research institutions,senior executives with academic experience may be more inclined to a prudent risk-averse strategy.At the same time,the relationship between executives’ academic experience and corporate innovation is also influenced by other factors.First of all,enterprises are divided into state-owned enterprises and non-state-owned enterprises according to the nature of property rights.There are some differences in the operation system and the appointment mechanism,incentive system and role attribute of senior executives,which also makes state-owned enterprises and non-state-owned enterprises different in the choice of operation strategy.Secondly,the decision-making behavior of senior executives is influenced not only by individuals but also by environmental factors.When the environmental uncertainty increases,the potential risks and risk tolerance faced by enterprises also change,thus affecting the decision-making behavior of senior executives.In addition,government subsidies,as one of the government’s regulatory means to alleviate market failure,not only provide enterprises with direct financial support,but also send a positive signal of trust and technology to the outside world,providing favorable conditions for enterprise innovation activities.In addition to examining the moderating factors of executives’ academic experience and corporate innovation,it is also worth exploring the channels which executive academic experience affects corporate innovation.Academic experience enables senior executives to conduct self-restraint and organizational control with stricter standards.Through the effective improvement of internal control quality,an efficient information circulation channel and resource allocation system can be established for enterprises,thus promoting the development of enterprise innovation activities.Based on this,this paper takes 2008-2017 China’s non-financial A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen as the research object,on the top echelon theory,signaling theory,asymmetric information theory and external theory,using the method of empirical analysis,to explore the influence of senior executives’ academic experience on corporate innovation,and examines the moderating role of property rights,environmental uncertainty,government subsidies and the mediating role of internal control.Specifically,the research content of this paper includes the following aspects.First,the impact of executives’ academic experience on corporate innovation;Secondly,the property right nature,environmental uncertainty and government subsidy play a regulating role in the academic experience of executives and enterprise innovation.Thirdly,internal control plays an intermediary role in senior executives’ academic experience and corporate innovation.In addition,in the further analysis part,this paper explores the relationship between key executives’ academic experience and enterprise innovation,expands enterprise innovation to dual innovation,and explores the differential impact of executives’ academic experience on dual innovation.Through the research,this paper draws the following conclusions.Firstly,the academic experience of senior executives can promote the innovation of enterprises;Secondly,in the relationship between senior executives’ academic experience and enterprise innovation,the state-owned nature of enterprises and environmental uncertainty will weaken the relationship,while government subsidies have a positive regulating effect.Thirdly,internal control is one of the effective channels for senior executives’ academic experience to promote enterprise innovation.Fourthly,compared with non-key executives,the academic experience of key executives has a more significant positive effect on corporate innovation.Fifthly,the academic experience of senior executives has different influence on dual innovation.That is,the executive academic experience can promote the development of innovation,but will inhibit the exploration of innovation.Based on the conclusions obtained,this paper puts forward the following three suggestions.Firstly,academic experience as a reference for the selection of senior executives;Secondly,continue to implement government subsidy policies and improve the system of implementation,supervision and feedback of enterprise innovation projects;Thirdly,actively promote the positive impact of senior executives’ academic experience on the quality of enterprises’ internal control,and promote the orderly development of enterprises’ innovation activities;Fourthly,strengthen the positive influence of senior executives’ academic experience on enterprises’ exploratory innovation and realize the balanced development of enterprises’ dual innovation.Finally,the innovation of this paper mainly includes the following three aspects.Firstly,the innovation of research perspective.Secondly,the innovation of influence mechanism.This paper also explores the moderating effects of property rights,environmental uncertainty and government subsidies.At the same time,it is verified that internal control is one of the effective channels for senior executives’ academic experience to influence enterprise innovation.Thirdly,expand the innovation of content.In the part of further analysis,this paper explores the differential influence of senior executives’ academic experience on corporate dual innovation,which has certain significance of expansion.