Is Heterogeneity Better? The Impact of Top Management Team Characteristics on Enterprise Innovation Performance

• Published in: Behavioral sciences Vol. 12; no. 6; p. 164
• Main Authors: Wang, Haihong, He, Wenjun, Yang, Yufan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 26.05.2022; MDPI
• Subjects: Age; Annual reports; Decision making; deep-factor heterogeneity; Education; enterprise innovation performance; Executives; GEM-listed enterprise; Gender; Hypotheses; Information processing; Information sources; Innovations; shallow-factor heterogeneity; Teams; Tenure; top management team characteristics heterogeneity
• ISSN: 2076-328X; 2076-328X
• DOI: 10.3390/bs12060164

Although the importance of the top management team’s characteristics has attracted research attention, its influence remains undetermined. This paper considers the influence of top management team characteristics’ heterogeneity on GEM-listed enterprises’ innovation performance. From the perspective of optimizing top management team human capital and improving enterprise innovation performance, this study analyzes 634 GEM-listed enterprises via regression analysis. The results show that the effect of shallow-factor heterogeneity of the top management team on enterprise innovation performance is not significant, but deep-factor heterogeneity has a negative effect. These findings indicate that deep-factor heterogeneity is more important than shallow-factor heterogeneity and is subject to closer attention. If a GEM-listed enterprise wants to set up a strong top management team that contributes to the improvement of enterprise innovation performance, it must examine the consistency of each member’s educational background and extend their tenure as long as possible without considering the gender ratio or age structure of the team.