Founder CEO, CEO Characteristics, and Firm Innovation Efficiency: An Empirical Study of China’s GEM-Listed Companies

Qian Wang, Xiaojie Pei and Huigang Liang
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Qian Wang: The Modern Enterprise Management Research Center of Shaanxi Province, School of Business, Xi’an University of Finance and Economics, Xi’an 710100, China
Xiaojie Pei: School of Business, Xi’an University of Finance and Economics, Xi’an 710100, China
Huigang Liang: Department of Business Information and Technology, Fogelman College of Business and Economics, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 38152, USA

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 14, 1-22

Abstract: While it is widely known that founder Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) can influence firm innovation, few studies have comprehensively examined how the founder CEO affects the firm’s innovation input, innovation output, and input-to-output conversion rate, and how these effects depend on the founder CEO’s demographic, cognitive, and corporate positional characteristics. We analyze the nine-year panel data of China’s Growth Enterprise Market (GEM)-listed companies to empirically study the relationship between founder CEO (vs. non-founder CEO), CEO characteristics, and firm innovation efficiency. Our analysis produces four major findings. First, founder CEO firms have a lower innovation input and higher innovation output than non-founder CEO firms. Second, compared with male founder CEOs, female founder CEOs can further reduce innovation input without sacrificing innovation output. Third, founder CEOs with a higher education level can also further reduce innovation input without sacrificing innovation output. Finally, compared with founder CEOs that are not the chairman of the board, the founder CEOs that take dual positions (CEO and chairman) allocate higher innovation input, but the innovation output does not increase. These findings have implications for both research and practice in helping firms achieve sustainable development.

Keywords: founder CEO; CEO characteristics; innovation efficiency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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