高管团队职能背景异质性对企业数字化转型的影响

The impact of functional background heterogeneity of top management team on enterprise digital transformation

数字化转型是企业实现突围发展的关键,高管团队(TMT)异质性对成功实现数字化转型具有重要影响。从高层梯队理论出发,以2010—2021年间中国沪深A股上市公司为研究样本,考察TMT职能背景异质性对企业数字化转型的影响。实证检验发现:TMT职能背景异质性与数字化转型之间存在倒U型关系,在国有企业和中小型企业中两者倒U型关系更加显著;TMT平均年龄对两者关系无显著影响;女性占比和教育水平分别正向和负向调节两者的倒U型关系。进一步的研究表明,创新能力在TMT职能背景异质性与数字化转型之间起中介作用;TMT职能背景异质性的相关影响独立于TMT是否具有研发背景和CEO职能背景多样性的影响,且通过影响数字化转型促进企业经济效益的提高。

Digital transformation is the key for enterprises to achieve breakthrough development,and the heterogene-ity of top management team(TMT)has an important impact on the success of digital transformation.Starting from the high-level echelon theory,taking the panel data of Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies during 2010—2021 as research samples,the Herfinadal coefficient was used to measure the heterogeneity of TMT function-al background,and the impact of TMT functional background heterogeneity on enterprisesdigital transformation was investigated.Empirical findings:There is an inverse U-shaped relationship between TMT functional back-ground heterogeneity and digital transformation,and a series of robustness tests,such as propensity score matching,two-period lag of explained variables,sample replacement,change of measurement model,addition of control vari-ables that may be omitted,and non-shrinking tail treatment,show that TMT functional background heterogeneity still has a significant inverse U-shaped effect on digital transformation.This is because the heterogeneity of TMT functional background plays a certain role in the integration of internal and external resources,the operation of member relations and organizational decision-making.Furthermore,we pay attention to the difference of this effect in different types of enterprises,and find that the inverted U-shaped relationship between state-owned enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises is more significant,because state-owned enterprises have a certain path de-pendence and relatively weak technology accumulation ability,while small and medium-sized enterprises have a certain resource disadvantage.Secondly,the interaction term of TMT demographic characteristics and TMT func-tional background heterogeneity was introduced to further explore the boundary conditions of the mechanism of ac-tion.The results showed that the average age of TMT had no significant effect on the relationship between the two,possibly because the dynamic nature of the power structure or social capital involved in the age of senior executives may affect the results of the study.The proportion of women positively moderates the inverse U-shaped relationship between TMT functional background heterogeneity and enterprise digital transformation,respectively,because fe-male executives have the ability to cultivate interpersonal relationships and long-term vision.Education level nega-tively moderates the inverse U-shaped relationship between TMT functional background heterogeneity and enterprise digital transformation,because TMT with higher education level has relatively less work experience and makes too detailed decision analysis.In addition,based on the dynamic capability perspective and using the number of paten-ted inventions to measure the innovation capability of enterprises,we find that innovation capability plays an inter-mediary role between the heterogeneity of TMT functional background and digital transformation.Specifically,the heterogeneity of TMT functional background has an inverted U-shaped effect on the innovation capability of enterpri-ses,while the innovation capability of enterprises positively affects the digital transformation of enterprises.Further research shows that the related influence of TMT functional background heterogeneity is independent of whether TMT has the influence of R&D background and CEO functional background diversity,and promotes the improve-ment of enterprise economic efficiency through the influence of digital transformation.The research of this paper provides empirical evidence for Chinese listed enterprises to rationally allocate senior management team personnel,actively carry out innovation activities,and realize digital transformation.