From institution to practice: How intellectual property protection promotes collaborative innovation behavior, quantity, and quality, moderated by academically experienced executives

The paradoxical relationship between intellectual property protection and collaborative innovation requires in-depth investigation. This study adopts a “macro policy to micro implementation” approach, integrating both legislative and enforcement dimensions to measure the intellectual property protection intensity in China. Using a dataset of 17,376 samples from listed companies across all industries from 2008 to 2018, we develop a moderation effect model to examine the role of academically experienced executives in moderating the relationship between intellectual property protection and collaborative innovation. Specifically, we analyze collaborative innovation performance from three dimensions: behavior, quantity, and quality. The findings reveal that: (1) Intellectual property protection significantly enhances firms' collaborative innovation behavior, quantity, and quality. Moreover, stronger intellectual property protection has a greater positive impact on the quantity and quality of collaborative innovation; (2) Academically experienced executives strengthen the positive relationship, demonstrating a positive moderating effect. This result applies to all three dimensions of collaborative innovation: behavior, quantity, and quality. Under the same intellectual property protection, firms with more academically experienced executives exhibit better collaborative innovation performance, particularly in terms of high-quality collaborative innovation quantity. Based on these findings, it is recommended that China strengthen intellectual property protection and improve enforcement efficiency. Additionally, optimize intellectual property protection clauses specifically targeting collaborative innovations, reasonably distribute the benefits of collaborative innovations, and optimize corporate innovation management strategies. Meanwhile, encouraging academically experienced executives to participate in corporate decision-making can further increase the behavior, quantity, and quality of collaborative innovations even under the same intellectual property protection environment.