Research On The Impact Of CEO Poverty Experience On Enterprise Innovation

For a long time,China has been plagued by poverty to varying degrees.Its weak economic foundation and low production capacity have made it the country with the largest number of impoverished people in the world in the early stages of development.A series of social problems caused by poverty have also become one of the main challenges faced by China.In recent years,China has made significant achievements in poverty alleviation,and the timely achievement of the poverty alleviation goals in the new era does not necessarily mean the complete end of poverty.The profound imprint formed by the impoverished group during the period of material poverty will still exist for a long time and continue to play a role.Among them,as the key decision-maker and implementer of enterprise decisionmaking,CEO’s poverty imprint formed based on past poverty experience has a significant and lasting impact on the decision-making behavior of CEO individuals and their enterprises,and becomes an important variable affecting enterprise management decisions.Innovation,as an important strategic choice of enterprises,is the core technical force that supports the long-term development of enterprises and obtains the first mover competitive advantage.However,under the continuous and in-depth background of the implementation of the current innovation driven development strategy,some enterprises still have problems such as insufficient innovation motivation and weak innovation willingness.Can CEO’s poverty imprint affect enterprise innovation decisions? Is its long-term impact the root of constraining the innovation vitality of enterprises and promoting the conservative closure of enterprises? Few studies have fully evaluated and discussed this issue.More importantly,the imprinting effect may not be homogeneous and permanent.The specific characteristics of the period when poverty occurred,the complexity of the environment and other factors can affect the formation intensity of the poverty imprint.In addition,when leaving the original poverty environment and encountering the impact of new imprinting events or new organizational situations,the impact of early poverty imprint on individuals may undergo dynamic changes of fading or activation,which will also play a differentiated role in innovation activities.It can be seen that it is ambiguous and one-sided to explore the innovative impact of CEO poverty imprint only from the perspective of imprinting identification.Based on this,this paper,based on the imprinting theory,takes all A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2012 to 2020 as research samples,theoretically analyzes and empirically tests the impact of CEO childhood poverty experience on enterprise innovation,and examines whether CEO poverty imprint can become an important factor affecting the development of enterprise innovation activities.At the same time,focusing on the formation process and continuous influence process of the poverty imprint,according to the research idea of "strengthening,fading and activating" of the imprint,this paper introduces three years of childhood experience of natural disasters,overseas experience and corporate performance dilemma into the research framework of "CEO poverty experience-enterprise innovation".The results show that:(1)CEO childhood poverty experience has a significant negative impact on enterprise innovation,that is,under the influence of CEO poverty,the willingness of enterprises to carry out innovation activities will be significantly reduced.(2)Three years of natural disasters in childhood can strengthen the shaping effect of poverty imprint.(3)Under the influence of the coverage effect of overseas imprinting,the impact effect of early poverty imprint can fade.(4)Corporate performance dilemma can activate the old poverty imprint of CEO.The above research conclusions are still valid after a series of robustness tests.In addition,further research finds that the impact of CEO childhood poverty experience on innovation activities of different types of enterprises is significantly heterogeneous,and poverty imprint will significantly hinder high-risk innovation activities of enterprises,while the impact on low-risk innovation activities is not significant;Risk bearing level is an important path for CEO’s childhood poverty experience to play a role in enterprise innovation;The higher the CEO’s managerial autonomy,the more it can strengthen the negative relationship between his childhood poverty experience and enterprise innovation.The research contributions of this paper are as follows: First,from the perspective of enterprise innovation,it expands and enriches the research on the economic consequences of individual poverty experience,further clarifies the long-term impact of individual early life imprint,and provides new theoretical support and empirical evidence for companies to make scientific and reasonable management appointment decisions and career planning.Second,from the perspective of the CEO’s past poverty experience,it identifies the important influencing factors of enterprise innovation,providing useful reference for improving the level of enterprise innovation and promoting high-quality development of the economy and society.Third,by identifying and testing the situational factors that affect the formation intensity and function evolution of poverty imprint,the innovative effect of poverty imprint is analyzed in more detail and depth from a dynamic perspective,and the theoretical understanding of imprint formation and dynamic evolution law in the field of organizational research is promoted and deepened,and the practical explanatory power of imprinting theory is enhanced.