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Drawing on the upper echelons theory, this study focuses on how top management team (TMT) heterogeneity affects breakthrough innovations and examines how strategic decision-making logic (including causation and effectuation) moderates the relationship between TMT heterogeneity and breakthrough innovation.

By conducting an empirical test of 227 sample firms in China, the authors applied linear hierarchical regression analysis to test the hypotheses on the TMT heterogeneityinnovation relationship and the moderating roles of causation and effectuation.

The empirical tests show that TMT heterogeneity positively affects breakthrough innovation, and both causation and effectuation positively moderate the positive relationship between TMT heterogeneity and breakthrough innovation. In addition, effectuation has a stronger moderating effect on the positive correlation between TMT heterogeneity and breakthrough innovation than causation.

This study extends the upper echelons theory to explain how the characteristics of TMTs affect firm innovation. Specifically, the authors explore the TMT heterogeneity–breakthrough innovation relationship from the perspectives of information processing and core competence and reveal the boundary condition of strategic decision-making logic in the correlation between TMT heterogeneity and breakthrough innovation. In this vein, the authors contribute to the literature by untangling the internal mechanisms between TMT heterogeneity and breakthrough innovation and extending the discussion on effectuation theory from the entrepreneurship domain to the innovation field. Furthermore, the research findings can provide helpful implications for TMTs to manage breakthrough innovation effectively.

The paper aims to empirically examine the questions of how top management team (TMT) characteristics, including TMT heterogeneity and vertical dyads differences between TMT and Board Director, influence entrepreneurial strategic orientation, as well as how industry environment and corporate ownership moderate those relationships.

The paper designs the panel data on the listed companies of China's Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Board for the period 2006-2010, and uses hierarchical regression analysis and grouping regression analysis when examining the relationships among variables involved.

The paper provides empirical insights about how top management team (TMT) characteristics, including TMT heterogeneity and vertical dyads differences between TMT and Board Director, influence entrepreneurial strategic orientation, as well as how industry environment and corporate ownership moderate those relationships. It suggests that, except for TMT educational background, the heterogeneity of TMT age, gender, functional experience, and the vertical dyad differences between TMT and board chairperson significantly and positively impact ESO. Furthermore, industry environment and corporate ownership will moderate the relationship between TMT characteristics and ESO.

This paper fulfills an identified need to study how top management team characteristics influence entrepreneurial strategic orientation, as well as how industry environment and corporate ownership moderate those relationships.

This study aims to examine the effects of top management team (TMT) heterogeneity and corporate social responsibility (CSR) on the firm risk of Bursa Malaysia listed firms. Also, this study examines the moderating effect of CSR between TMT heterogeneity and firm risk.

This study uses panel regression models to test the hypotheses. The sample of this study is Bursa Malaysia non-financial listed firms from 2013 to 2017 with 3,055 observations.

This study finds significant effects of TMT age and tenure heterogeneities on total risk. Effects on idiosyncratic risk are evident only within age heterogeneity. Further, this study finds negative effects of CSR on total and idiosyncratic risks. CSR significantly moderates the relationship between total TMT heterogeneity and firm systematic risk.

This study reduces the literature gap by providing useful insights on the effects of CSR activities and TMT heterogeneity on firm risk. The findings can also provide hints to investors to assist them in assessing firm risk based on TMT heterogeneity and firms’ CSR. This study can also benefit shareholders in their attempts to mitigate the risk of their portfolio by investing in firms that are socially responsible as firms with high CSR suffer lower total and idiosyncratic risks.

Previous studies have emphasised on the influence of TMT characteristics and CSR on firm performance. However, studies that investigate the effects of TMT heterogeneity and CSR on firm risk are limited in the context of Malaysia.

Based on upper echelons (UE) theory, the purpose of this study is to investigate a conceptualized moderated mediation model for examining the effects of top management team (TMT) heterogeneity and firm value in China through the mediating effect of product diversification, the moderating effect of ownership type between TMT heterogeneity and product diversification and the moderating effect of executive shareholding between product diversification and firm value.

Unbalanced panel data were collected over 5 years with a total of 6,597 observations, organized through the WIND (Wind Economic Database) and CSMAR (China Stock Market and Accounting Research) Database. The hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling and analyzed with stata15.0 software.

The results indicated that product diversification plays a mediating role between TMT heterogeneity and firm value. In China, TMT heterogeneity of non–state-owned enterprises plays a more significant role in promoting product diversification than that of state-owned enterprises; executive shareholding strengthens the relationship between product diversification and firm value.

The characteristic dimension of TMT is seen as a relatively static factor, and it is worth looking at whether a more dynamic system of evaluation and measurement can be established.

This study enriches theoretical research on TMT and contributes to UE theory in several ways. First, we studied the mediation effect of product diversification between TMT heterogeneity and firm value. This extends research on UE theory to possible process variables. Second, considering the influence of the unique institutional environment in China on corporate strategic decisions, the study investigates state-owned and non–state-owned enterprises. Specifically, it looks at the influence of ownership type as a moderating variable between TMT heterogeneity and product diversification. Third, the paper discusses the moderating effect of executive shareholding on the product diversification–firm value relationship. The research contributes to agency theory and expands research on different economic systems by implementing agency theory.

This study aims to reveal the mechanism of CEO overconfidence in the digital transformation of specialized, refined, distinctive and innovative (SRDI) enterprises, thereby enriching research related to upper echelons theory and corporate digital transformation.

This study uses listed SRDI companies in China from 2017 to 2022 as a sample and adopts a fixed-effects regression model to analyze the direct, mediating, and moderating effects of CEO overconfidence on corporate digital transformation.

First, CEO overconfidence significantly promotes SRDI enterprises' digital transformation. Second, according to the “cognition-behavior-outcome” model, we found that entrepreneurial orientation plays a mediating role. Third, based on the principle of procedural rationality and the interaction perspective between the CEO and the executive team, we introduce the heterogeneity of the executive team as a moderating variable. Our findings indicate that age heterogeneity within the executive team has a negative moderating effect, whereas educational and occupational heterogeneities have positive moderating effects.

This study expands on earlier research that focuses primarily on CEO demographic characteristics. It enriches the analytical perspective of upper echelons theory on corporate digital transformation by analyzing the psychological characteristics of CEOs, that is, overconfidence and its mediating pathways. Moreover, this study goes beyond the previous literature that does not differentiate between CEOs and executive teams by introducing the concept of CEOs' interactions with the executive team and including the heterogeneity of the executive team as a moderating variable in the literature. Thus, continuing to deepen the application of upper echelons theory to corporate digital transformation. Additionally, this study contributes to the literature on the positive consequences of overconfidence.

Share pledge is a popular way to raise funds in China, but it aggravates information asymmetry. As an indispensable information intermediary in the financial market, media coverage affects asset price and pricing efficiency and impacts information asymmetry. This study aims to explore the governance role of media coverage as an information intermediary in the share pledge context in China.

Moderating effect and mediating effect analyses are the primary methods used to test the governance role of media coverage. The ordinary least squares model was used to test the relationship between share pledge and market performance and then proved the moderating effect of media coverage toward the corporate market value of pledge firms. Accounting earnings value relevance models were explored to test the path of media coverage on firm market value by mediating effect analysis. At last, subgroup tests were used to verify the heterogeneity of the moderating effect of media coverage.

In the context of share pledge in China, the higher the share pledge ratio, the higher is the market value of listed firms, which verifies the motivation of controlling shareholders to avoid the transfer of control right and the motivation to tunneling. Media coverage has a significant negative moderating effect on the relationship between share pledge rate and corporate value and has a significant impact on the accounting earnings value relevance of share pledge firms. From the perspective of long-term earnings, media coverage reduces the market performance of share pledge firms by reducing the value correlation of accounting earnings information. From the short-term price point of view, media coverage reduces the market performance of share pledge firms by improving the value correlation of accounting earnings information. Furthermore, media coverage has a more significant moderating effect in state-owned share pledge firms and low information transparency and low information disclosure quality firms.

This paper does not distinguish the mode difference of spreading news and the impact of non-pledge media coverage. Also, this paper does not consider factors other than accounting information value relevance when exploring how media coverage affects the corporate market value. Share pledge firms should use media for publicity and play a role in media governance and should actively improve their information disclosure quality, strengthen communication with investors and reduce information asymmetry fundamentally.

This paper diversify the governance choices for share pledge firms and has important implications for firms, investors, information intermediaries and regulators. Media reports play an increasingly important role today, and any reports and predictions of major events may profoundly affect investors’ decisions. Although media reports can make up for the weakness of accounting information disclosure of equity pledge companies in some sense, it is still not a long-term strategy. Equity pledge companies should not only make use of media for publicity and play a role of media governance but also actively improve their information disclosure quality.

This paper focuses on share pledge firms to carry out in-depth research. Based on exploring the influence mechanism of share pledges, the authors find the importance of media governance. This paper expands the literature about the economic consequences of share pledges and provides empirical data for media governance of share pledge firms. This paper innovatively proves the governance role of media coverage from the view of accounting information value relevance. The main innovation point is the long and short-term perspective analysis of the influence of media coverage on the correlation of accounting earnings value. The heterogeneity effect analysis of media coverage also reflects the depth and strong practical guiding significance of this study.

The current study has three main purposes: (1) replicate results from prior framing effects studies on social media. To do so, the study examines the influence of news frames (free speech vs. public order) on participants' attitudes toward an alt-right rally (2) expand prior research by examining the emotional reaction of participants to these frames and (3) probe the moderating effects of face-to-face heterogenous talk and heterogenous social media feeds.

Drawing from theoretical concepts such as competitive framing, emotions and heterogeneity, the study uses a randomized online experiment. The study examines a conversation in a Twitter thread that includes both free speech and public order frames in the comments to the thread. The total number of participants was 275.

The results show that free speech versus public order frame did not impact attitudes of the participants toward the alt-right rally. Findings also show the significant main effects of free speech and public order frames and the interaction of exposure to heterogeneity on emotional reactions of outrage and anger toward the alt-right rally. These findings suggest that framing research needs to take social media features into consideration for a complete picture of framing effects on social media.

Using a classic framing effects experiment, the study includes variables relevant to social media discussions on Twitter and examined the moderating effects of heterogeneity on emotional reactions. In addition, one of the important methodological contributions of the current study are the framing manipulations for an externally valid experimental design.

Digitalization is increasingly important for promoting authentic CSR practices. Firms with higher CSR levels motivate their employees to pursue their goals and demonstrate their social responsibility. However, the literature has not adequately examined how firm-level digitalization influences corporate sustainability from a governance perspective. This study aims to fill this gap by exploring how digitalization affects CSR disclosure, a key aspect of sustainability, at the firm level. Furthermore, this study also aims to investigate how governance factors, such as management power, internal control and minority shareholder pressure, moderate this effect.

This study employs a fixed effect model with robust standard errors to analyze how digitalization and CSR disclosure are related and how this relationship is moderated by governance heterogeneity among Chinese A-share companies from 2010 to 2020. The sample consists of 2,339 firms, of which 360 are SOEs and 1,979 are non-SOEs. To ensure robustness, this study has excluded the observations in 2020 to avoid the effects of COVID-19 and used an alternative measure of CSR disclosure based on the HEXUN CSR disclosure index. Furthermore, this study also explores the link in various corporate-level CSR settings.

The regression findings reveal that: First, Chinese A-share firms with higher digitalization levels disclose less CSR information. This finding holds for both SOEs and non-SOEs. Second, stronger management power has a negative moderating effect that weakens the link between digitalization and CSR disclosure, and this effect is mainly driven by SOEs. Third, internal control attenuates the negative association between firm digitalization and CSR disclosure, which is more pronounced in SOEs. Finally, minority shareholders exacerbate the negative relationship between digitalization and CSR disclosure, and this effect is more evident in non-SOEs. These results are robust to excluding the potential COVID effect and using an alternative HEXUN CSR disclosure index measure.

Digitalization and sustainability have been widely discussed at a macro level, but their relationship at a micro level has been largely overlooked. Moreover, there is hardly any evidence on how governance heterogeneity affects this relationship in emerging economies, especially China. This paper addresses these issues by providing empirical evidence on how digital transformation influences CSR disclosure in China, a context where digitalization and CSR are both rapidly evolving. The paper also offers implications for both practitioners and policymakers to design appropriate digital strategies for firm development from diverse business perspectives.

Corporation's board (CB) is viewed as a vital internal corporate governance (CG) mechanism, playing a critical role in mitigating the agency problems and enhancing firm performance. Considering the mixed nature of extant CG literature on CB-firm performance link, this study aims to examine the impact of specific CB attributes on firm performance studied in varied contextual settings and investigates the moderating effects of three contextual factors, i.e. legal origin, industry type and firm type on CB-performance relationships.

Meta-analysis technique suggested by Hedges and Olkin (1985) was used to analyse a sample of 330 effect sizes reported in 148 studies published between 2000 and 2020 in 85 peer-viewed journals, studying CB-performance associations across 31 countries. The analyses were conducted in two stages: first, the authors assessed the main effect of CB attributes on firm performance and tested the heterogeneity in effect size across the primary studies. In the next stage, the authors investigated the moderating variables accounting for this heterogeneity in the CB-firm performance relationship.

Board independence, board diversity, board size and role duality are the CB attributes, which significantly and positively impact firm performance. Further, the homogeneity tests revealed variability in effect size for all CB attributes except for board committees. Subgroup meta-analyses revealed that the contextual factors related to industry-type and firm-type are substantial explanatory source of heterogeneity in CB-performance association, though legal origin of firm also partially explains the heterogeneity in this relationship.

Only empirical research reporting Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients(r), as the effect size, were considered for this study. Some of the other CB attributes such as board composition, compensation structure of board members, performance evaluation and appointment process of board members were not included due to limited empirical research on these attributes.

The paper includes implications for managers and policy makers for the development of effective corporate boards and CG mechanisms.

This paper integrates diverse empirical evidence on the associations of CB attributes with firm performance and systematically assesses the moderating factors that contributes to heterogeneity in these relationships.

The link between openness and innovative performance has been established as an inverted U-shape relationship, namely, the openness-performance connection is not always positive. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of partner heterogeneity to characterize the influence of “quality” changes in partners on innovative performance, that is, the focus of this paper. Given that partner heterogeneity is crucial in explaining open innovative performance, it is also worth placing the examination of this key construct in emerging regions such as China.

The sample selection of this study covers a wide range of industries, but requires that the sample firms be manufacturing enterprises with an open innovation strategy. With opportunities and challenges associated with partner collaboration toward open innovation, the Chinese province of Zhejiang has established its reputation. Thus, empirical data were collected randomly from data pool of Zhejiang Province Economic and Information Commission, as well as a survey questionnaire. Data were using a cross-sectional survey methodology encompassing diverse organizations, industries, and nations.

Empirical testing of this assumption in a sample of 217 manufacturing firms indicates that partner heterogeneities, which are classified as organizational heterogeneity, industry heterogeneity, and national heterogeneity are all positively associated with innovative performance, but the strength of this association is influenced by environmental turbulence. Technological turbulence significantly and positively modulates the relationships of organizational and national heterogeneities with innovative performance. Market turbulence also plays a significant positive role on the relationship between national heterogeneity and innovative performance, while technological and market turbulence roles on the relationship between industry heterogeneity and innovative performance are not confirmed.

This paper refines the connotative dimensions of partner heterogeneity around the core concept of partner heterogeneity in open innovation in the context of emerging region, China. The study presents a systematic, in-depth analysis, and verifies the impact mechanisms of partner heterogeneity in open innovation on innovative performance by integrating the resource-based view, organizational learning theory, and transaction cost theory.