Study On The Relationship Between Top Management Team Heterogeneity And The Innovation Performance

Top management team (TMT) is very critical to firm’s innovation performance and development since it takes the mission of establishing and implementing firm strategies. Study on TMT is also a widely noted topic by academia and business in recent years. Although the existing studies on the relationship between TMT heterogeneity and innovation performance are fruitful, the empirical results are not explicit and consistent, even contradict each other. There are two major reasons:one is that the research objects are different, and also the differences in research environment and research perspective in those researches; and another is the defects of research methods, which neglect the moderating or intervening variables in researches. Meanwhile, existing researches are from the developed countries and large enterprises that may restrict the application and popularization of the study result.The purpose of this study is to apply the basic theory of TMT (Upper Echelons Theory) in the unique social and economic context of China and analyze the relationship between TMT heterogeneity and innovation performance. Meanwhile, this research introduces strategic orientation as the intervening variables in order to explain the influence of the intervening variables on the relationship between TMT heterogeneity and innovation performance.Based on the reviewing of existing literatures, this empirical research put forward a research model and relevant research hypotheses.60small and medium-sized enterprises of Zhejiang, Shanghai, Jiangsu etc. are taken as a whole sample. Data is processed by SPSS (Version19.0). The results are as following:(1) TMT age heterogeneity, education level heterogeneity, and education major heterogeneity are both positive related to innovation performance; tenure heterogeneity and career background heterogeneity are both negative related to innovation performance.(2) There is different relationship between the TMT heterogeneity and the dimensions of strategic orientation (customer orientation, competitor orientation, technology orientation, entrepreneur orientation).(3) There is positive relationship between the innovation performance and the dimensions of strategic orientation (customer orientation, competitor orientation, technology orientation, entrepreneur orientation).(4) There is intermediation effect of strategic orientation on the relationship between TMT heterogeneity and innovation performance.Chinese institutional context and market environment are quite unique. Analyzing the relationship of TMT heterogeneity and innovation performance under these backgrounds while strategic orientation’s intermediation effect, this research may broaden the application of Upper Echelons Theory in China. This study also contributes to a better understanding of the influence of enterprises’TMT heterogeneity, which enrich the contents of TMT research. The selecting of the research objects and the intervening variables in this empirical research provides a new perspective for further TMT research in China.