Research On The Influence Of Board Capital On Technological Innovation Of Enterprises

The implementation of innovation-driven development strategy has become a basic national policy.In the current market competition environment,technological innovation of enterprise is crucial to its long-term development.In numerous influencing factors of technological innovation,corporate governance plays a fundamental role,the board of directors makes strategic decision through corporate governance,which is key to the formation and formulation of technological innovation decision.Previous researches mostly focused on the structure and operating mechanism of board of directors,and have shown inconsistency influencing results to strategic decision,thus,there is a need to further study the governance of board of directors from a new perspective.As a result,on the basis of previous studies,this research uses ‘board capital' to comprehensively evaluate the board of directors,and divide the board capital into two dimensions,which include both the breadth and depth of board capital.More specifically,the breadth of board capital is evaluated from the perspectives of functional background,professional background and CEO duality;the depth of board capital is assessed based on the degrees of the embeddedness of both board members and external directors to the industry.Besides,this study uses the research and development intensity to evaluate the level of technological innovation of an enterprise according to other literatures.On this basis,this paper explores the effects of the breadth and depth of board capital on technological innovation,and further discusses these effects under different property rights.Moreover,micro-factors(power of CEO and ownership concentration)and macro-factors(institutional environment index)are included to research the variation of the effects of board capital on the level of technological innovation under the influence of different variables.This paper is organized as follows.Section 1 introduces the research topic on the basis of the current research background and economic environment,analyses the theoretical and practical significances,proposes the research ideas and technical route,and introduces the research approaches based on the definitions of main concepts that are involved in this study.Section 2 is the relevant theories and literature review,which mainly includes three parts.First part is the review of the board governance,which contains the analysis and summarization of board functions,and the review of relevant theories and evolution processes of board governance according to the historical background.Second part reviews the relevant researches of board capital,mainly include certain basic theories and measurement methods that are related to board capital,such as the resource-based view,agency theory,and resource dependence theory.Third part reviews the relevant studies of the effects of board capital on technological innovation,points out the limitations of current researches,and brings forward the research perspectives of this paper.The topic of section 3 is the policy and current status of board capital and technological innovation,which introduces the institutional background of technological innovation and the development process of the system of board of directors in our country,summarizes the current situation of the information disclosure of Chinese listed firms' technological innovation,and lays a good foundation for making policy suggestions of board governance that are suitable for China's national conditions.Section 4 is the research of the effect of board capital on technological innovation.On the basis of the previous theoretical analysis,this section studies the overall influence of board capital on the level of technological innovation by using a dataset of Shanghai-Shenzhen 300 index listed firms for the period 2008-2016,meanwhile,this part also discusses the variation of the relationship under different property rights.Section 5 and section 6 analyze the effect of board capital on technological innovation based on micro-factors and macro-factors,respectively.More specifically,these two sections add micro-factors(power of CEO and ownership concentration)and macro-factor(institutional environment index)into the regression models as moderator variables respectively,to explore the changes of the effect of board capital on technological innovation under different circumstances.On the basis of the empirical findings of section 4 to 6,section 7 concludes the final results and policy suggestions,and presents future research directions.This study draws the following conclusions through theory analysis and empirical tests.Firstly,the breadth of board capital can actively improve the level of technological innovation,moreover,the heterogeneity of professional background of board members and that of CEO duality can also promote the technological innovation effectively.Secondly,the depth of board capital has no significant influence on the level of technological innovation.Specifically,the degree of the embeddedness of board members to the industry is negatively related to the level of technological innovation,on the contrary,the degree of the embeddedness of external directors to the industry is positively related to the level of technological innovation.Thirdly,CEO power and ownership concentration significantly weaken the positive effects of both the breadth of board capital and the degree of the embeddedness of external directors to the industry on the level of technological innovation.Fourthly,the breadth and depth of board capital have significant differences under various property rights.Finally,the breadth and depth of board capital have different influences on the level of technological innovation under various property rights.This dissertation includes the following innovation points.First of all,this study systematically explores the relationship between board capital and technological innovation and establishes relevant research models.According to previous researches,this paper classifies and measures the board capital that are consistent with China's actual conditions,explores how board capital will influence the level of technological innovation and relevant moderator variables.On the basis of theoretical analysis,the relationship between board capital and technological innovation has been comprehensively studied and relevant hypothetical research models have also been established,in order to make theoretical breakthrough,provide theoretical guidance for practice,and optimize the strategic decision making of board of directors.Secondly,the board capital has been measured more comprehensively.According to China's current economical operation and enterprise management,this paper pays more attention to the heterogeneity of board members,classifies and measures the board capital,so as to research the actual contribution of board in technological innovation decision making.Besides,in order to recognize and utilize board capital effectively,this study establishes a more comprehensive measurement system of board capital,develops proper proxy variables of board capital,and builds good foundation for future empirical research.Thirdly,a systematic evaluation of information disclosure of Chinese enterprises' technological innovation has been made.This research uses the VBA programming languages to write crawler program,creates a keyword search of annual reports of all A-share listed firms for the period 2007-2016,and illustrates the status of technological innovation information disclosure based on the establishment of relevant evaluation system.Meanwhile,considering the changes of information disclosure policy in 2012,an investigation of market feedback on the policy has been made.Last but not the least,this paper systematically expounds the ways of influence of board capital on technological innovation and proposes relevant recommendations.Currently,there is a shortage of literatures which study the enterprise decision making from the perspective of board capital,and the guiding role of board capital in firm's strategic investment need further research.Additionally,the decision of board is an essential part of firm's technological innovation.Therefore,this study explores the influence of board capital on the level of technological innovation by using literature review,logical deduction,and empirical research and analysis,in order to guide board's working practices,allocate board's human capital and social capital,and provide reference for firm's innovation and development.