Top management team background, university-industry collaboration, and innovation performance: a causal mediation analysis in Chinese listed firms

ABSTRACT

China has been enhancing the status of enterprises in innovation to boost its economy in recent years, and the role of the top management team (TMT) in enterprises has become increasingly prominent. Existing research has examined the influence of TMT on general innovation, whereas the effect of TMT on open innovation strategy, including university-industry collaboration (UIC), is rarely investigated. With the dataset of 2295 Chinese listed firms from 2010 to 2019, we empirically identify the relationship between TMT background (i.e. education, functional, and academic background) and UIC and examine the role of UIC in terms of the relationship between TMT background and innovation performance using causal mediation analysis. This study adds literature on the micro-level factors affecting UIC intensity and sheds light on the path following which TMT background positively affects innovation performance. Our findings also highlight practical ways for entrepreneurs and policymakers to improve UIC intensity and innovation performance in Chinese listed firms.

KEYWORDS:

• TMT background
• university-industry collaboration
• innovation performance
• causal mediation analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Yang Yang

Yang Yang is pursuing her Ph.D. degree in Business Management at the University of Science and Technology of China. She received her bachelor degree in 2014 at Lanzhou University in China.

Yue Wang

Dr. Yue Wang is currently an assistant professor in the School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences at Arizona State University. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Biostatistics in 2018 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Feng Feng

Dr. Feng Feng is a professor in Business Management at the University of Science and Technology of China. He received his Ph.D. degree in Nanjing University in China.