The Impact Of Heirs' Overseas Experience On Corporate Performanc

Since the reform and opening up,China’s economy has been developing continuously,and family enterprises,as an important branch of the private economy,play an important role in the economic development.At present,family enterprises have entered the first large-scale handover wave,and the second generation successor will gradually enter the management to hold important positions in the company.Compared with the first generation,the second generation has a better upbringing and more overseas experience.As a successor with unique resource endowment,a returnee successor will have a significant impact on the implementation of corporate strategies and business management behaviors,so the overseas experience of the successor should receive significant attention as one of the important personal characteristics.Innovation is the first driving force to lead development.At present,China’s economy is in an important stage of transformation and upgrading,the survival and development of enterprises can no longer be satisfied by a single innovation behavior,ambidextrous innovation has become an important way for enterprises to upgrade their technological capabilities and obtain competitiveness in the market,and the balance between exploratory and exploitative innovation will have an important impact on the long-term sustainable development of enterprises.Overseas experience as an important feature of successor will have an impact on their perceptions,while ambidextrous innovation,as an important strategy of enterprises,will inevitably be affected by managers’ cognition and preferences,which will further affect the performance level of enterprises.So in the context of intergenerational inheritance of family businesses,how does the overseas experience of successor affect ambidextrous innovation? Does the successor’s overseas experience affect business performance through ambidextrous innovation and the balance of ambidextrous innovation? None of these issues has yet to be definitively concluded.This paper integrates successor’s overseas experience,ambidextrous innovation and enterprise performance into the same research framework,combines organizational duality theory,high-level echelon theory,resource base view and technological innovation theory,and takes family enterprises listed on A-shares from2008 to 2020 as samples to study the impact of successor’s overseas experience on corporate performance,the impact of successor’s overseas experience on ambidextrous innovation,and the mediating role of dual-element innovation in the impact of successor’s overseas experience on enterprise performance.The findings include: the successor’s overseas experience positively affects the performance of the family business;Successor with overseas experience can improve the level of exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation activities of enterprises,which have an intermediary role between the successor’s overseas experience and enterprise performance,and the mediating role of exploratory innovation is stronger.At the same time,this paper further studies the balance between exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation,and finds that the balance of ambidextrous innovation can improve the performance level of enterprises and has a mediating effect between the overseas experience of successor and corporate performance.In addition,through comparison,it is found that among the three balances of exploratory innovation,exploitative innovation and ambidextrous innovation,the mediating effect of ambidextrous innovation balance is better.The research conclusion of this paper provides a new perspective for the research on the impact of successor’s overseas experience on enterprise performance,enriches and expands the relevant research on the relationship between successor’s overseas experience and ambidextrous innovation,and provides a reference for intergenerational succession planning and better performance of family enterprises in practice.