A Cross-level Analysis On The Relationship Between Entrepreneurs Power And Entrepreneurial Ventures' Independent Innovation

How to cope with the complex and dynamic external environment?How to construct and strengthen the key competitiveness of enterprises?In recent years,the overseas development of Huawei,ZTE and other Chinese companies in Europe,the United States and other countries once again shows that independent innovation has become an effective way for enterprises to constantly enhance market competitiveness and withstand external environmental turbulence and political impact of other countries.As the important micro subjects of the national economic system,the independent innovation activities of entrepreneurial firms not only contribute to shaping their own core competitiveness,but also play important roles in promoting the improvement of a country's independent innovation ability.Leaders and their teams,as the main body of strategic decision-making of entrepreneurial ventures,continue to carry out innovative activities by identifying and capturing market risks and opportunities,dynamically adjusting strategic planning,optimizing and reconfiguring existing resources and other measures to lead the continuous development of entrepreneurial ventures.Therefore,the study on how to build a reasonable and efficient entrepreneurial team is not only the need to overcome the "liability of newness" of entrepreneurial ventures,but also the inevitable requirement to improve the quality of enterprise innovation decision-making and lead the continuous growth of enterprises through innovation-driven.As the core of the team and the decision-making core of the enterprise,entrepreneurs use their power to participate in and implement the key innovation strategy of entrepreneurial ventures,and then shape the orientation of various behaviors of the enterprise,including the independent innovation behavior of entrepreneurial ventures.Moreover,this behavior mode is also potentially influenced by external factors(e.g.,legal environment and industry elements)and internal factors(e.g.,the level of enterprise risk-taking and cross-level interaction between entrepreneurs and their teams).To sum up and consider the process of independent innovation,this research is mainly carried out from the following three aspects:(a)Based on the analysis of the Chinese cultural background and the characteristics of sample firms,this study firstly discusses the influence effect of the power of entrepreneurial entrepreneurs on the R&D intensity of entrepreneurial firms.Secondly,we investigate the moderating effects of industry elements and cross-level sociodemographic dissimilarity of entrepreneurs respectively based on the existing research.Finally,the co-moderating effects of industry elements and cross-level sociodemographic dissimilarity of entrepreneurs is considered.Results indicate that entrepreneurs power is positively related to the entrepreneurial firms' innovation intensity.Compared with the capital-intensive and labor-intensive industries,entrepreneurs' power has more strongly associated with innovation intensity of entrepreneurial firm in technology-intensive industries.The promoting effect of chair power on innovation intensity of entrepreneurial firms with low degree of the entrepreneurs-team socio-demographic dissimilarity is greater.The adjusting effects of the industry categories on entrepreneurs power and innovation intensity of entrepreneurial firms have also relied on the degree of entrepreneurs-team socio-demographic dissimilarity.When the degree of entrepreneurs-team socio-demographic dissimilarity is low,entrepreneurs power has a greater positively impact on the innovation intensity of entrepreneurial firms in technology-intensive industries.And when the degree of entrepreneurs-team socio-demographic dissimilarity is high,the difference in innovation intensity of entrepreneurial firms between technology-intensive industries and non-technology-intensive industries driven by chair power will be narrowed.This study expands the perspective of leader power research based on enterprise innovation.And it helps to understand the potential boundary conditions of the effect of entrepreneur power on the R&D intensity of entrepreneurial ventures,and effectively guides the innovation management practice of entrepreneurial ventures.(b)The exploitative innovation and explorative innovation of entrepreneurial ventures are described by patent output.This paper discusses the influence of powerful entrepreneurs on exploitative innovation and explorative innovation of entrepreneurial ventures.On this basis,the power of entrepreneurs is decomposed to explore which type of power has a particularly significant impact on the ambidextrous innovation of entrepreneurial ventures.Secondly,considering the research of the cross-level age-consistent dissimilarity between entrepreneurs and their teams and the specific context of China,the cross-level age-consistent dissimilarity between entrepreneurs and their teams is incorporated into the above framework.And the moderating effect of the cross-level age-consistent dissimilarity between entrepreneurs and their teams on entrepreneurs power and the ambidextrous innovation of entrepreneurial ventures is explored.The results show that:the innovation activities of powerful entrepreneurs in entrepreneurial ventures tend to exploitative innovation rather than explorative innovation.Secondly,considering the heterogeneous power of entrepreneurs,it is found that the promoting effect of the power intensity of entrepreneurs on the exploitative innovation of entrepreneurial ventures mainly comes from the coordination and integration of the internal resources of entrepreneurs by exercising organizational power to drive the exploitative innovation of entrepreneurial ventures.Thirdly,the cross-level age-consistent dissimilarity between entrepreneurs and their teams will inhibit the innovation-driven effect of entrepreneur power.Compared with the studies in the western context,this confirms that the cross-level age-consistent dissimilarity of leaders in the Chinese cultural context also has a non-functional side.This study is helpful to clarify the composition of age differences of the team in reality,expand the mechanism of age differences of the team.It provides theoretical and practical reference for the dynamic optimization of leaders' power structure and teams' cross-level management.(c)On the basis of the above discussion,the R&D investment intention and innovation results of entrepreneurial firms are included into the same research framework.And the independent innovation efficiency of entrepreneurial ventures is constructed.The mechanism of entrepreneur power on independent innovation efficiency of entrepreneurial ventures is analyzed.On the one hand,direct and indirect methods are used to evaluate the independent innovation efficiency of entrepreneurial firms.On this basis,the overall innovation efficiency of entrepreneurial ventures is divided into exploitative innovation efficiency and explorative innovation efficiency according to the technology innovation mode.And the influence of entrepreneurs power on the two kinds of efficiency is discussed.On the other hand,considering the internal risk-taking and external legal environment of entrepreneurial ventures,this study discusses the relationship between entrepreneur power and independent innovation efficiency of entrepreneurial ventures from a cross-level perspective.Results indicate that power entrepreneurs have significant driving effect on the efficiency of independent innovation in entrepreneurial firms.Secondly,the better the legal environment in which the entrepreneurial firms are located,the weaker the positive influence of power entrepreneurs on the efficiency of independent innovation of entrepreneurial firms.Thirdly,the higher the risk-taking level of entrepreneurial firms,the stronger the positive infilencet of power entrepreneurs on the efficiency of independent innovation.By changing the measurement method of key variables,retesting the moderating effect,and controlling other factors,the veracity of the above findings are authenticated.It is expected to provide theoretical and practical reference for the improvement of independent innovation efficiency of entrepreneurial ventures in combination with macro and micro levels.