Managerial R&D hands-on experience, state ownership, and corporate innovation

Yafei Li, William Mbanyele and Jinping Sun

China Economic Review, 2022, vol. 72, issue C

Abstract: In this paper, we investigate how management team R&D experience affects corporate innovation. A finer-grained empirical analysis supports that firms led by managers with R&D hands-on experience are associated with high innovation productivity. Using the mediation effect models, we uncover three underlying economic mechanisms that possibly explain the relation between R&D experience and innovation; the transformation effect, the information effect, and the resource effect. Furthermore, we find that R&D experience is critical for senior managers (CEO and co-CEO) and junior managers (other executives) in spurring corporate innovation and their combination substantially contributes to increased innovation productivity; however, our findings suggest junior managers play a more fundamental role while senior managers play a leadership role. We also find that managerial R&D experience enhances more innovation in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) than in non-SOEs. Our conclusions are consistent with the learning by doing theory that specialist managers with hands-on experience are more critical for technological innovation.

Keywords: R&D hands-on experience; Corporate innovation; Management team; Senior manager; Junior manager (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G32 G34 O31 O32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:chieco:v:72:y:2022:i:c:s1043951x22000244

DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2022.101766

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