How can CEO Research Experience Drive Strategic Change?
Under the threat of scientific and technological competition and the context of high-quality development strategy,leading innovation to break through the growth dilemma has increasingly become the strategic mission and development path for enterprises to change and upgrade.In practice,cases of"science-based"enterprises have shown that the CEO's past experience in research,science and technology experience shapes his/her cognitive and behavioural logic,and becomes an important driving force for strategic change in response to complex and dynamic competitive situations.However,few studies have focused on this phenomenon and the theoretical logic behind it.Strategic change is not an entirely passive response behaviour to dynamic changes in the environment,and the CEO,as the main body of strategic decision making,is a key factor influencing strategic change,which has received increasing attention from scholars.Most of the previous studies on CEO traits and strategic change are based on upper echelon theory perspective,which mainly focuses on the effects of CEO personality traits or psychological traits such as CEO regulatory focus,time focus,emotions,overconfidence,hubris,core self-evaluations,etc.on strategic change;and some other studies consider the role of CEO multi-career experience,internationalisation experience,and board experience in strategic change.However,there is a lack of clarity about the impact of CEO past science and technology experience on strategic change and its pathways.Some scholars have defined CEO past science and technology experience as CEO research experience and find that CEO research experience enhances firms'R&D innovation.Starting from the research experience perspective and integrating upper echelon theory and imprinting theory,this paper finds that:First,CEO research experience can significantly promote strategic change.Second,environmental complexity strengthens the effect of CEO research experience in promoting strategic change;environmental dynamism weakens the effect of CEO research experience in promoting strategic change.Moreover,there is heterogeneity in the relationship between CEO research experience and strategic change.The effect of CEO research experience in promoting strategic change is stronger in non-state enterprises,high-tech enterprises,enterprises with low policy uncertainty,and enterprises in regions with high institutional efficiency.Further research finds that the effect of CEO research experience in promoting strategic change will fade over time when the CEO is older or has a longer tenure.Mechanism tests suggest that CEO research experience facilitates strategic change by strengthening absorptive and innovative capabilities in dynamic capabilities,absorptive and innovative capacities in dynamic capabilities mediate the relationship between CEO research experience and strategic change.The main contributions of this paper are as follows:First,based on the theoretical lens of imprinting theory,this paper investigates the impact of CEO research experience on strategic change and its intrinsic motivation,which provides a new perspective for the study of CEO's past experience and enriches the study of the influencing factors of strategic change.Second,this paper discusses the strengthening and weakening roles played by environmental complexity and dynamics in the imprintig effect of CEO research experience,as well as the dynamic process of imprinting fading,which advances the knowledge of the imprinting evolution law and the researchon imprinting institutionalisation.Third,this paper integrates the view of dynamic managerial capability to reveal the dynamic capability mechanism of CEO research experience on strategic change,and more fully analyses the intermediate role of dynamic capability,which provides new insights into the path study of upper echelon theory and the process mechanism of strategic change.In addition,this paper provides policy guidance for enterprises to improve the CEO selection mechanism and executives to promote corporate strategic change in the context of high-quality development.
CEO research experiencestrategic changeenvironmental uncertaintydynamic capabilitiesimprinting theory
万方数据
维普
