IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v57y2023ics154461232300627x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

CEOs’ multicultural backgrounds and firm innovation: Evidence from China

Author

Listed:
  • Li, Kailun
  • Xia, Yifei
  • Zhang, Jianing

Abstract

We examine the effect of CEOs’ multicultural backgrounds, which play a critical role in shaping an individual’s personality, on firms’ innovation outputs. Employing the number of dialects in a CEO’s birthplace as a proxy for cultural diversity, we focus on language-related cultural influence while controlling for experience-related cultural influence. Our hypothesis posits that the multicultural background makes the CEO more open-minded and adventurous and, therefore, more likely to invest in firm innovation. We find that CEOs with multicultural backgrounds devote more effort to and perform better on innovation than those without multicultural backgrounds. Cross-sectional analyses show that this positive effect of CEOs’ multicultural backgrounds on innovation output is more pronounced when the firm is exposed to higher industry competition and when the information environment is more transparent. Our findings contribute to the literature on CEO characteristics by providing evidence of how the CEO’s multicultural background induces alterations in the firm’s innovation effort and performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Li, Kailun & Xia, Yifei & Zhang, Jianing, 2023. "CEOs’ multicultural backgrounds and firm innovation: Evidence from China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:57:y:2023:i:c:s154461232300627x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2023.104255
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S154461232300627X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2023.104255?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ayyagari, Meghana & Demirgüç-Kunt, Asli & Maksimovic, Vojislav, 2014. "Bribe Payments and Innovation in Developing Countries: Are Innovating Firms Disproportionately Affected?," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(1), pages 51-75, February.
    2. Atanassov, Julian & Liu, Xiaoding, 2020. "Can Corporate Income Tax Cuts Stimulate Innovation?," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 55(5), pages 1415-1465, August.
    3. Vincent L. Barker , III & George C. Mueller, 2002. "CEO Characteristics and Firm R&D Spending," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(6), pages 782-801, June.
    4. David Hirshleifer & Angie Low & Siew Hong Teoh, 2012. "Are Overconfident CEOs Better Innovators?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(4), pages 1457-1498, August.
    5. Fosu, Samuel & Danso, Albert & Ahmad, Wasim & Coffie, William, 2016. "Information asymmetry, leverage and firm value: Do crisis and growth matter?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 140-150.
    6. Marianne Bertrand & Antoinette Schoar, 2003. "Managing with Style: The Effect of Managers on Firm Policies," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(4), pages 1169-1208.
    7. Robert M. Bushman & Abbie Smith, 2003. "Transparency, financial accounting information, and corporate governance," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 9(Apr), pages 65-87.
    8. Xuan Tian & Tracy Yue Wang, 2014. "Tolerance for Failure and Corporate Innovation," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(1), pages 211-255, January.
    9. Cátia Felisberto, 2012. "The Relationship Between Competition and Incumbent’s Innovation," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 21-46, March.
    10. Jie (Jack) He & Xuan Tian, 2020. "Institutions and Innovation," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 377-398, December.
    11. Xingqiang Du, 2019. "Does CEO-Auditor Dialect Sharing Impair Pre-IPO Audit Quality? Evidence from China," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 156(3), pages 699-735, May.
    12. Atanassov, Julian & Liu, Xiaoding, 2020. "Can Corporate Income Tax Cuts Stimulate Innovation? - ERRATUM," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 55(5), pages 1755-1755, August.
    13. Strohmeyer, Robert & Tonoyan, Vartuhi & Jennings, Jennifer E., 2017. "Jacks-(and Jills)-of-all-trades: On whether, how and why gender influences firm innovativeness," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 498-518.
    14. Hsu, Po-Hsuan & Tian, Xuan & Xu, Yan, 2014. "Financial development and innovation: Cross-country evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(1), pages 116-135.
    15. Tan, Yongxian & Tian, Xuan & Zhang, Xinde & Zhao, Hailong, 2020. "The real effect of partial privatization on corporate innovation: Evidence from China's split share structure reform," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    16. Bian, Wenlong & Ji, Yang & Zhang, Hao, 2019. "Does dialect similarity add value to banks? Evidence from China," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 226-241.
    17. Serfling, Matthew A., 2014. "CEO age and the riskiness of corporate policies," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 251-273.
    18. Alberto Galasso & Timothy S. Simcoe, 2011. "CEO Overconfidence and Innovation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(8), pages 1469-1484, August.
    19. Wang, Lanfang & Wang, Yue & Zhou, Jing, 2022. "Political connection,government R&D subsidies and innovation efficiency: Evidence from China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    20. Mukherjee, Abhiroop & Singh, Manpreet & Žaldokas, Alminas, 2017. "Do corporate taxes hinder innovation?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(1), pages 195-221.
    21. Chen, Yangyang & Podolski, Edward J. & Rhee, S. Ghon & Veeraraghavan, Madhu, 2014. "Local Gambling Preferences and Corporate Innovative Success," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(1), pages 77-106, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gao, Lei & Han, Jianlei & Pan, Zheyao & Zhang, Huixuan, 2023. "Individualistic CEO and corporate innovation: Evidence from U.S. frontier culture," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(9).
    2. Ya You & Shuba Srinivasan & Koen Pauwels & Amit Joshi, 2020. "How CEO/CMO characteristics affect innovation and stock returns: findings and future directions," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 48(6), pages 1229-1253, November.
    3. Cláudia Custódio & Miguel A. Ferreira & Pedro Matos, 2019. "Do General Managerial Skills Spur Innovation?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(2), pages 459-476, February.
    4. Wu, Qiang & Dbouk, Wassim & Hasan, Iftekhar & Kobeissi, Nada & Zheng, Li, 2021. "Does gender affect innovation? Evidence from female chief technology officers," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(9).
    5. Qing Wan & Xiaoke Cheng & Kam C. Chan & Shenghao Gao, 2021. "Born to innovate? The birth‐order effect of CEOs on corporate innovation," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(9-10), pages 1846-1888, October.
    6. Sun, Lan & Liu, Shaobo & Chen, Peng, 2022. "Does the paternalism of founder-managers improve firm innovation? Evidence from Chinese non-state-owned listed firms," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    7. Cho, Chanho & Halford, Joseph T. & Hsu, Scott & Ng, Lilian, 2016. "Do managers matter for corporate innovation?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 206-229.
    8. Adhikari, Binay Kumar & Agrawal, Anup, 2016. "Religion, gambling attitudes and corporate innovation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 229-248.
    9. Li, Yafei & Mbanyele, William & Sun, Jinping, 2022. "Managerial R&D hands-on experience, state ownership, and corporate innovation," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    10. Beladi, Hamid & Hou, Qingsong & Hu, May, 2022. "The party school education and corporate innovation: Evidence from SOEs in China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    11. Amin, Md Ruhul & Wang, Xinyu & Aktas, Elvan, 2023. "Does oil price uncertainty affect corporate innovation?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    12. Liu, Guanchun & Lu, Di & Yang, Jinyu, 2023. "Innovation for promotion: The effect of executive involvement on inventors' innovation choice," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    13. Zhaorui Guo & Kam C. Chan & Jun Huang, 2021. "The impact of executive diversity on corporate innovation: Evidence from the natural experiment of high‐speed rail in China," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(1), pages 219-234, January.
    14. Lora Dimitrova & Sapnoti K Eswar, 2023. "Capital Gains Tax, Venture Capital, and Innovation in Start-Ups," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 27(4), pages 1471-1519.
    15. Ren, Shenggang & Cheng, Yingmei & Hu, Yucai & Yin, Chao, 2021. "Feeling right at home: Hometown CEOs and firm innovation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    16. Christopher Kurzhals & Lorenz Graf‐Vlachy & Andreas König, 2020. "Strategic leadership and technological innovation: A comprehensive review and research agenda," Corporate Governance: An International Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(6), pages 437-464, November.
    17. Çağatay Bircan & Ralph De Haas, 2020. "The Limits of Lending? Banks and Technology Adoption across Russia," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(2), pages 536-609.
    18. Chen, Yangyang & Podolski, Edward J. & Veeraraghavan, Madhu, 2017. "National culture and corporate innovation," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 173-187.
    19. Liu, Guangqiang & Xie, Ziqin & Li, Ming, 2023. "Does economics and management education make managers more cautious? Evidence from R&D of Chinese listed firms," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    20. Chen, Wanyi & Jin, Rong, 2023. "Does tax uncertainty affect firm innovation speed?," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:57:y:2023:i:c:s154461232300627x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/frl .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.