Venture capital (VC) is a vital source of financing for firms to support their growth and innovation. In China, however, VC tends to concentrate disproportionately and repeatedly on a few high-profile firms, through multiple rounds, large funding amounts, and many participating investors. The impact of this intense VC chase, especially on firm innovation, has received little attention in the existing literature. Based on data of companies listed on the Growth Enterprise Market from 2010 to 2024, with observation windows spanning three years before and after each firm's IPO, this study explores the relationship between VC chase and innovation performance of invested firms. The empirical results reveal an inverted U-shaped relationship: while a moderate level of VC chase is positively associated with firm innovation, excessive chase is negatively associated with it. Furthermore, this study analyzes the boundary conditions of this relationship and finds that the inverted U-shaped relationship is more pronounced in firms with lower R&D intensity or greater technological distance from industry leaders. This study enriches the understanding of how VC influences firm innovation by conceptualizing VC chase as a dynamic, multidimensional pattern of investment and interpreting its effects through a temporal pacing and innovation rhythm perspective, and provides theoretical insights for policymakers and investment institutions to establish a well-developed capital market and efficient investment mechanisms.

Technological innovation is critical for high-tech new ventures (HTNVs), and the position of Chief Technology Officer (CTO) has become increasingly crucial in top management teams (TMTs). Drawing upon the upper echelons theory and the attention-based view of the firm, we examined a sample of 429 HTNVs in China between 2014 and 2019 to test whether and how appointing a CTO and the CTO's characteristics affect the new ventures' innovation activities. The results show that having a CTO position promotes HTNVs' exploratory innovation activities but does not affect exploitative innovation activities. While a longer CTO tenure positively affects exploratory innovation, it hinders exploitative innovation. In addition, a CEO serving as the CTO in a HTNV has a negative effect on exploitative innovation activities but no effect on exploratory innovation activities. This effect is contingent on the CEO's technological background and whether the CEO owns shares in the HTNV. The findings of this study enrich the literature on the upper echelons theory, the attention-based view, and entrepreneurship and innovation and provide rare empirical evidence on whether and how appointing a CTO, CTO characteristics, and the interaction of CTO characteristics and CEO characteristics affect HTNVs' innovation activities in emerging markets.

转型经济背景下,新手创业者设立CTO岗位既能帮助创业企业提升合法性,又能促进企业提升技术创新能力,构建差异化竞争优势.然而,当企业面临高度复杂且不确定的外部环境和不断变化的战略需求时,新手创业者必须恰当考虑CTO的岗位设立问题.那么,哪些情况下新手创业者会选择设立CTO岗位?影响新手创业者设立CTO岗位的动因有何不同?本文基于最优区分理论,通过对两家本土创业企业进行双案例探索性研究,试图探寻新手创业者基于合法性/差异化机制选择设立CTO岗位的情境影响因素.研究发现,当创业企业所在行业竞争强度较高或技术成熟度较低时,新手创业者会选择设立CTO岗位提升企业合法性;而当新手创业者对创业企业技术目标和CTO人选有清晰判断及首次大规模量产时,也会选择设立CTO岗位帮助企业构建差异化竞争优势.本文丰富了最优区分理论在创业企业职能型高管设置领域的相关研究.

When a firm actively engages in CSR practices, does the leader always make ethical decisions? Drawing on social cognitive theory and the ethical decision-making literature, we develop a model to explain how a leader makes unethical decisions in an active CSR-practicing environment. Specifically, we argue that a firm's CSR practices do not necessarily translate into the leader's ethical decisions, and on the contrary, it may lead to the opposite. The relationship between a firm's CSR practices and its leader's unethical decisions is mediated by the leader's moral cognitive process (moral licensing and moral imagination) toward the firm's CSR practices, and this relationship is further moderated by the leader's altruistic values. Results from multi-method studies largely support our predictions.

Research Summary Prior research suggests that the founders of new ventures leverage their existing networks, such as close ties to service intermediaries, as a source of entrepreneurial improvisation. We draw attention to the trade-off between the benefits (trust and access to information and resources) and the costs (dependence and a constrained growth opportunity), and identify two contingency conditions for using close ties to improvise: a shorter time horizon for failure and less turbulent market. Analysis based on an original survey of founding teams in China in the period 2015-2016 provides empirical support for our argument. Our study contributes to research on entrepreneurial improvisation by exposing the tension involved in working with close contacts and enriches the literature on the role of service intermediaries.Managerial Summary We consider the trade-off involved in relying on close ties to service intermediaries and identify conditions under which founders of new ventures are more likely to rely on such intermediaries to improvise. Although close ties can foster trust and facilitate access to a wide range of information and resources, they may also foster a dependency that could constrain future growth. A survey of founding teams in China from 2015 to 2016 reveals that founding teams leveraged such ties when given a shorter time horizon within which to succeed or fail, and when the market was less turbulent. Our findings can help entrepreneurs decide when to resort to close-tied intermediaries as an aid to improvisation, that is, when the benefits of doing so outweigh the costs.

共同富裕作为我国重要的国家战略之一,强调以共创为导向、以共享为准则、以共生为目标的发展理念.创业企业是推动国家经济发展的重要动力,协同各方利益相关者进行价值共创、实现共益共生是其践行共同富裕战略的重要途径.本文以河南胖东来商贸公司为研究对象,通过探索性单案例研究,构建了利益相关者视角下创始人的亲社会动机对创业企业共创共益共生影响的理论框架.研究发现,创始人的亲社会动机将引导创业企业在创造经济价值的同时兼顾社会价值创造,协同利益相关者基于共同目标开展价值共创;同时,数字技术的应用能够加深企业与利益相关者的利益联结,推动创业企业与利益相关者能基于价值共创来共享价值创造成果,实现多方共益共生.本文拓展了企业层面参与共同富裕的研究视角,揭示了创业企业与利益相关者通过共创、共益、共生最终实现共同富裕的过程机制,为以数字技术为代表的新兴技术赋能创业企业价值共创提供了理论及实践启示.

基于信号理论,探讨了领头创业者伦理型领导对创业团队成员变动的影响.研究一通过联合实验法,分析领头创业者伦理型领导对潜在创业团队成员加入意愿的影响.研究二采用问卷调查法,探究领头创业者伦理型领导对现有创业团队成员退出意愿的影响.结果表明,领头创业者伦理型领导会促进潜在团队成员的加入意愿,且上述影响受到新企业外部融资的负向调节及潜在团队成员诚实-谦恭的正向调节.此外,领头创业者伦理型领导会抑制现有团队成员的退出意愿,且这一关系受到创业团队独立导向伦理氛围和现有团队成员道德认同的正向调节及自利导向伦理氛围的负向调节.本文丰富了创业团队成员变动领域的研究,拓展了创业团队新成员加入的研究视角,深化了信号理论在创业情境的应用,对于创业团队成员的调整优化具有一定的借鉴意义.

农民合作社带动小农户成功进入大市场对助力农民增收致富具有重要的现实意义.然而现阶段许多农民合作社面临制度和资源的双重约束,其如何实现与大市场的成功对接在理论上和实践中都还是未解的难题.本文从制度逻辑视角出发,结合社会拼凑理论,对河南省4家在乡村振兴战略背景下成立的农民合作社的市场进入过程进行跨案例分析.研究发现,农民合作社在"探索期—修补期—嵌入期"的市场进入过程中,遵循"公益性效率逻辑—联盟合法性逻辑—关系合法性逻辑"的制度逻辑路径,推进了"价值创造—利益相关者联合—说服"的社会拼凑行动过程,并随着市场合法性的获得和价值链的完善,最终成功进入大市场.研究结果对处于"卖难"等困境中的农民合作社具有启发意义.

基于制度理论,从平台组织视角出发,探究农民合作社如何帮助非正式创业者从非正规市场转移到正规市场,以实现小农户与大市场的有机衔接.通过对5家农民合作社的市场进入过程进行分析,研究发现:农民合作社多阶段、多层面的平台组织功能促进了非正式创业农户的正规化过程——“思维启发—能力构建—关系重塑—市场合法性”;同时,正规化过程是连续且脆弱的,会受到农户个体经营绩效、关系网络以及包容性市场、赋权性政策的影响.

Despite the prevalence of work teams in organizations, how newcomers become integrated into teams remains an understudied area. Drawing on research related to indirect social resources, in this paper we employ a social network perspective to examine how close teammates' friendship centrality can facilitate newcomers' adjustment by fostering the newcomers' own social capital in teams and promoting their subsequent task performance. Furthermore, our model incorporates institutionalized socialization tactics and political skill as two contingencies that can further strengthen the positive effects of indirect social resources on newcomers' adjustment. In a time-lagged study using multiple sources of data, we found good support for our hypotheses. Specifically, close teammates' friendship centrality was positively related to newcomers' task performance through the mediating effect of newcomers' own friendship centrality in teams. The two moderators further strengthened this indirect effect. Overall, this study highlights the importance of "making the right friends" to facilitate newcomer adjustment into teams.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between industry association membership and firm innovation in Chinese private ventures. A secondary objective is to investigate potential moderating effects of firm learning practices and founder characteristics on the above relationship, and to draw out implications for policymakers and practitioners. Design/methodology/approach The paper utilizes data from a sample of 567 Chinese entrepreneurial firms operating in 9 designated emerging industries. Hierarchical regression models were employed to analyze the effect of industry association membership on firm innovation, and the potential moderating effects. A 2SLS procedure was adopted to control for potential endogeneity issue. Supplemental analyses were conducted to ensure the robustness of the findings. Findings The paper provides empirical insights about how industry association membership, along with firm learning practice and founder leadership, affect firm innovation in Chinese private ventures in emerging industries. It suggests that industry association membership positively affects firm innovation. Further, there is a three-way interaction effect of industry association membership, learning practice and founder power on innovation. Research limitations/implications Due to the design of the data set, there are some limitations. First, the study only considered whether a firm belongs to an industry association, but not the nature of such membership (length, firm status in the association, etc.). Second, the cross-sectional design may limit the power of the study to make casual implications about the tested relationships. Practical implications The paper provides important practical implications for policymakers and entrepreneurs in China. In general, the results suggest that private ventures pursuing innovation in emerging industries can benefit from industry associations, and entrepreneurs shall actively engage in firm-level and personal-level learning. For policymakers, the study suggests that to foster innovation in an emerging industry, special attention shall be paid to building necessary institutional support to develop and to strengthen the role of industry association in the industry. Originality/value This paper fulfills an important gap in the literature in that it is one of the first, which investigates the role of the industry association in firm innovation, especially in a non-western context. This paper provides new insights into the role of industry association and firm innovation in an under-researched developing economy context.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to apply the social cognitive theory and social learning theory to examine the different mechanisms through which entrepreneurs’ moral awareness and ethical behavior affect the product innovation of new ventures.Design/methodology/approachThe authors collected survey data from 150 founders and 389 founding team members of new ventures in China in 2015. The final sample contained 113 questionnaires from entrepreneurs and 246 questionnaires from their founding team members. Regression analyses were used to test direct effects, and Preacher and Hayes’ (2004) formal mediation test approach with bootstrapping method was used to evaluate the mediation effects.FindingsThe findings indicate that the ethical levels of entrepreneurs can affect the product innovation of a new venture through two paths: entrepreneurs with low levels of moral awareness tend to be more individually creative, which facilitates product innovation, and entrepreneurs with high levels of ethical behavior can make founding teams more creative, which also promotes product innovation.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study suggest that entrepreneurs are not negatively affected by their low moral awareness as long as they exhibit high ethical behavior with founding team members. But such low moral awareness has to be genuine. The best way to promote product innovation in the long run is to create an organizational culture of ethical behavior rather than to ignore moral issues in decision-making.Originality/valueThis study challenges the assumption that moral awareness and ethical behavior are always consistent. It takes an initial step to resolve the contradiction in the current literature regarding the relationship between the ethical levels of entrepreneurs and product innovation in the context of founders and founding teams in new ventures.

利用手边当时可得的资源即时地构建和执行应对策略的即兴行为是创业企业应对环境不确定性、克服资源短缺困境的常见选择.尽管过去十五年来创业企业即兴行为(entrepreneurial improvisation,EI)的研究获得了蓬勃发展,但研究成果相对碎片化,散乱且未经系统梳理的研究阻碍了其发展成为一个有前途的研究领域.本文从创业即兴概念内涵、前置变量(触发因素和发生条件)以及结果变量等方面出发,对现有创业企业即兴行为研究进行分析和总结,并在此基础上进一步细化研究的概念框架,从创业即兴的特征与分类、内部组织因素和外部环境因素对创业即兴的影响、创业即兴对企业持续性创新的影响等方面提炼了值得未来研究密切关注的前沿主题.借此赋予创业即兴这一概念以研究的合理性和前景性,帮助引导创业者/创业团队思考即兴行为的重要性,以进一步推进其在创业实践及研究过程中的发展.

<span id="ChDivSummary" name="ChDivSummary" class="abstract-text">快速利用手边资源、灵活有效地即兴发挥是创业企业响应环境不确定性和获取竞争优势的一种战略性竞争行为。尽管越来越多的研究关注到即兴行为在创业过程中的重要作用,但已有文献对创业企业即兴行为的探讨仍停留在初始阶段,所得结论并未深入探究其具体内涵和作用机理,更缺乏创业情境下即兴行为的明确定义。基于此,本文试图对创业企业即兴行为的内涵及特征规律进行解析,首先从资源视角出发,通过多案例研究识别创业企业即兴行为的内容及双元性特征,将其划分为探索式和开发式两类;随后依照规范的量表开发步骤对两类创业即兴进行了量表开发及实证检验。本文深化了已有研究对创业情境下即兴行为的认识,丰富了创业管理领域和战略性竞争行为的研究视角。</span>

Despite the large volume of research, how newcomers become integrated into teams remains to be an understudied area. Drawing on research on “borrowed social capital” and sponsorship, we employ a so...