Abstract
Aiming to have a deeper understanding of innovation in emerging economies, this article investigates the relationship between political connections and research and development (R&D) intensity of Chinese enterprises. In particular, we examine the moderating effects of firm-level factors (i.e., financial slack and state ownership) and regional-level institutional development from the motivation-opportunity-ability perspective. Using a panel dataset of 1010 Chinese enterprises between 2008 and 2014, we find that political connections have a negative effect on R&D intensity. We further observe that this negative effect is attenuated when firms have less financial slack or are state-owned enterprises. Nevertheless, institutional development does not significantly influence the impact of political connections on R&D intensity. This article extends the innovation management literature by providing insights into the relationship between political connections and R&D intensity as well as its boundary conditions in an emerging economy context.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 2419-2430 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Journal | IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management |
| Volume | 70 |
| Issue number | 7 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Jun 2023 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- China
- Contracts
- emerging economies
- Faces
- financial slack
- Government
- Indexes
- institutional development
- Investment
- political connections
- Research and development
- research and development (R&D) intensity
- state ownership
- Technological innovation
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Strategy and Management
- Electrical and Electronic Engineering
