The Impact Of Top Management Team Power Disparity On Firm Innovation Intensity

Firm innovation intensity is an important embodiment of innovation for enterprises,in today's increasingly competitive environment,how to gain competitiveness by improving innovation is very important to the survival and development of enterprises.As a key business leaders and strategic decision-makers,the top management(TMT)has a full decision for R & D investment,and thus will affect the intensity of innovation.Based on the theory of “Upper Echelons Theory” and “Attention-Based View of the Firm”,we collected 606 top management teams and firm data from A-shared listed manufacturing firms in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2013 to 2015,using empirical research and automated text analysis to examine the relation between TMT power disparity and firm innovation intensity.The results show that(1)TMT disparity has a positive effect on firm innovation intensity;(2)TMT innovation attention plays an intermediary role between TMT disparity and firm innovation intensity,TMT disparity firstly promotes TMT innovation attention,which in turn promotes higher firm innovation intensity;(3)The relation between TMT power disparity and TMT innovation attention is moderated by the TMT professional background,as the numbers of TMT who have technical professional background increase,the TMT power disparity has a greater effect on TMT innovation attention;(4)The relation between TMT innovation attention and firm innovation intensity is moderated by organization slack,that is the more organization slack in the enterprise,the TMT innovation attention has a greater positive effect on firm innovation intensity.Therefore,the finding of relation between TMT power disparity and firm innovation intensity enriched the “Upper Echelons Theory”,and from the new perspective of TMT innovation to research the relation,on the one hand reveals the internal mechanism of the relation between TMT disparity and firm innovation intensity,on the other hand is a useful complement to “Attention-Based View of theFirm”.In addition,based on “Upper Echelons Theory”,TMT professional background as the source of knowledge,cognitive and preference,taking it as a moderating variable to examine the relation between TMT power disparity and TMT innovation attention,which is a new exploration;and from the attention scenario principle to research the relation between TMT innovation attention and firm innovation intensity by the moderated role of organization slack,furthermore enriched the “Attention-Based View of the Firm”.