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Managerial ties, absorptive capacity, and innovation

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Abstract

Managerial ties—the boundary-spanning ties and interpersonal connections of top managers—contribute to a corporation’s innovativeness in emerging economies because of the absence of market supporting institutions, transparent laws, and clear regulations. Moreover, managerial ties are apt to interact with absorptive capacity to facilitate knowledge sharing and innovation. This paper examines the joint influence of managerial ties and absorptive capacity in two communities in China, one characterized by a high level of foreign direct investment (FDI) and the other consisting mainly of local corporations. We find that absorptive capacity moderates the effect of managerial ties on a corporation’s innovativeness. Furthermore, when examining the two communities separately, we find that business ties and university ties have opposite effects.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management, Xi’an Jiaotong University, No. 28, West Xianning Road, Xi’an, Shaanxi, 710049, China

    Shanxing Gao, Kai Xu & Jianjun Yang

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  1. Shanxing Gao
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  2. Kai Xu
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Correspondence to Kai Xu.

Additional information

Supported by Program for National Natural Science Foundation of China No. 70372050 and Program for Chinese New Century Excellent Talents in University No. NCET-05-0847. We would like to thank George F. Farris, Shige Makino and Darrell Levack for their very helpful comments and suggestions on drafts. We thank the editors (Mike W. Peng, Yuan Lu and Eric Tsang), two APJM reviewers, and all conference and seminar participants for helpful comments and discussions.

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Gao, S., Xu, K. & Yang, J. Managerial ties, absorptive capacity, and innovation. Asia Pac J Manage 25, 395–412 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10490-008-9096-1

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