The Influence Of Top Management Team Characteristics On The Degree Of Internationalization Of Firms

With the acceleration of the process of economic globalization,more and more Chinese enterprises have taken steps to internationalization.The factors that influence the internationalization of enterprises and how to lead companies to effectively carry out internationalization are both hot topics.As a decision-making layer of the enterprise,the top management team has a crucial role in the internationalization of the company.In the current study,scholars generally associate the characteristics of the top management team with the degree of internationalization of the company directly,and there is no systematic study of the internal mechanism.Therefore,based on the Upper Echelons Theory,this paper takes China's A-share listed private non-financial company as sample,and analyzes the degree of internationalization of private enterprises in China from the perspective of managerial characteristics.This is different from the previous Upper Echelons Theory's entry point.The level of corporate risk taking is introduced as a mediating variable.Regression analysis is used to test the hypotheses,and in the study of the influence of top management team characteristics on the degree of internationalization of the enterprise,the mediating role played by the level of corporate risk taking is discussed.In this paper,China's A-share listed private non-financial companies are selected as the research objects,and the characteristics of the top management team of 2007-2016 and the overseas sales and total sales of the company are selected.After processing,515 valid samples are obtained.After statistical analysis processed by Stata 12.0,the following conclusions are drawn: 1)The higher the education level of the top management team,the higher the level of corporate risk taking,which is beneficial to the internationalization of the company;the higher the proportion ofMales in the top management team,the higher the level of corporate risk taking and the better the internationalization of the company,thenthe mediating role played by the level of corporate risk taking has also been confirmed;2)The assumptions of the TMT's age and the degree of internationalization of firms and the assumption of the TMT's gender and corporate risk-taking levels have not been verified in this study.By introducing the mediating role played by the level of corporate risk taking,this paper further expands the Upper Echelons Theory,enriches the internal mechanism of the impact of the characteristics of the top management team on the internationalization of the enterprise,and further opens the “black box” and improves the influence mechanism of the characteristics of the top management team on the decision-making behavior.Similarly,as companies prepare for further development and shift their goals toward international expansion,in order to ensure the smooth implementation of internationalization of enterprises,companies need to rationally equip their top management team members with a focus on the composition of the top management team.First,the ratio of men and women is reasonable,which enables the top management team to ensure comprehensive consideration when making decisions,which is conducive to the promotion of internationalization of the company.Second,high-educated management teams with short term appointments have strong innovation capabilities and can help companies to achieve high-yield and high-risk investments,but at the same time we can not ignore the advantages of older managers' experience resources,so the diverse age of top management team members will help enhance the company's risk-taking level,so that companies can successfully implement international expansion strategy,it has certain guiding significance for the internationalization of private non-financial enterprises in China.