| As an important driver of economic growth,rational and effective technological innovation is a decisive force for a country to achieve sustainable economic development and a key support for an enterprise to maintain a long-term competitive advantage.As the first driving force,innovation is at the heart of the overall modernisation of China.In practice in recent years,the state has issued a series of policy documents aimed at highlighting the importance of innovation,with a focus on enhancing the technological innovation capacity of enterprises and stimulating the innovative vitality of talents.Through innovation survey data,innovative entrepreneurs have a high degree of influence on innovation success.According to imprinting theory,upper echelon theory,and resource-based theory,the cultivation of entrepreneurial innovation changes entrepreneurs’ perceptions and preferences for innovation activities,which in turn influences their decision-making and management behaviours that help firms access and utilise resources and information to build their innovation processes.Therefore,discussing the influence of entrepreneurial innovation spirit cultivation on enterprise innovation can help co-ordinate the work of education,science and technology,and talent,and promote the implementation of the three strategies of science and education,talent strengthening,and innovation-driven development in a trinity to help the country achieve high-quality development and modernisation.This thesis examines how the cultivation of CEOs’ innovative spirit affects corporate innovation.Using data on Chinese A-share listed companies from 2007 to 2020,this thesis investigates the impact of the school motto of the graduating university of the CEO’s higher education stage on corporate innovation.This thesis finds that the innovative meaning of a CEO’s graduating university’s school motto is significantly and positively associated with better innovation output of the firm.For example,CEO with more innovative graduating university mottos result in more invention patent applications and citations.The findings of the study held true after potential endogeneity issues were mitigated using propensity score matching procedure,firm fixed effects model,placebo test,instrumental variable method and staggered DID model.The regression results remained significant after a series of robustness tests including dynamic effect analysis,replacement of explanatory variable and replacement of explanatory variable.The heterogeneity analysis based on the graduate university and the company where the CEO worked showed that the positive impact of the innovative school motto of the graduate university on corporate innovation was more significant when the CEO graduated from a polytechnic,when the CEO graduated from a national key university,when the CEO worked in a private company and when the CEO worked in a high-tech company.Further mechanistic tests suggest that the innovative meaning of the college motto of the CEO’s graduation promotes the innovation output of the firm by increasing R&D expenditure,improving patent attention and enhancing innovation efficiency.The research in this thesis usefully extends the existing literature by demonstrating the importance of the cultivation of CEOs’ innovative spirit for corporate innovation.In order to cope with the changing international situation and fierce enterprise competition,and to enhance the quality of China’s economic growth and enterprise development advantages,combined with the conclusions of the above analysis,this thesis puts forward corresponding policy recommendations in terms of developing higher education,implementing innovation policies and strengthening the protection of property rights,in order to cultivate and stimulate the entrepreneurial spirit of innovation,enhance the technological innovation capability of enterprises,and help the quality development of the economy. |
