Role of Educational Level in Innovation Performance: An Exploration Study of Higher Education Graduates in China

Xianrui Yu, Xunzhuo Xi (), Qiuhong Zhao, Lin Liu and Guoliang Yang
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Xianrui Yu: Beihang University
Xunzhuo Xi: City University of Macau
Qiuhong Zhao: Beihang University
Lin Liu: Beihang University
Guoliang Yang: Chinese Academy of Sciences

Journal of the Knowledge Economy, 2025, vol. 16, issue 5, No 18, 16058-16077

Abstract: Abstract Innovation plays a vital role in societal and economic development, with human capital being a key driver for innovation by the development and absorption of new knowledge. However, there is a lack of research on the role of human capital with different levels of higher education (i.e., tertiary, master’s, and doctoral levels) in innovation performance. Therefore, this paper proposes a two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis-Stochastic Frontier Analysis (DEA-SFA) method to examine the relationship between human-capital education level and innovation efficiency. In the first stage, DEA is used to acquire separate innovation efficiency scores for each decision-making unit (i.e., organization possessing human capital). In the second stage, SFA is utilized to estimate the impact of human-capital educational level on innovation efficiency. The empirical results show a surprising U-shaped relationship between human-capital education level and innovation efficiency, and we find that human capital with a tertiary level have a more positive effect than that with a master’s level. In addition, this study finds that innovation intermediaries show a moderating role in the relationship between human-capital educational level and innovation efficiency. This study offers implications for both policymakers and managers on how to cultivate and recruit suitable human capital for higher innovation performance.

Keywords: Innovation efficiency; Higher education; Educational level; Human capital; Innovation performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/s13132-024-02578-5

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