TY - JOUR
T1 - Challenges in internationalization of R&D teams
T2 - Impact of foreign technocrats in top management teams on firm innovations
AU - Zhang, Yameng
AU - Sharma, Piyush
AU - Xu, Yekun
AU - Zhan, Wu
N1 - Funding Information:
Appreciation is given to the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant number: 71602082 ; 71572198 ; 71702058 ) and the Humanities and Social Sciences Foundation of the Ministry of Education of China (Grant number: 16YJC630148 ). The authors thank Leven J. Zheng for his valuable comments on a previous version of this article.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2021/5
Y1 - 2021/5
N2 - This study explores two reasons for why and when firm innovation may not benefit from the presence of foreign technocrats in top management teams, who represent a ‘minority-in- minority’ status due to their membership of two minority sub-groups (foreigners and technology experts). First, foreign technocrats may face greater social barriers to exert their human capital because their minority-in-minority status brings about twice as much pressure from the majority (the double jeopardy hypothesis). Second, the similarity resulting from the overlap of the two executive groups may render their sub-group peers apprehensive about a loss of self-identity, thus leading to horizontal hostility (the narcissism of minor difference theory). Using a study of 1635 Chinese manufacturing firms to compare the joint effects of similar sub-group peers and CEOs, we find that the overlap of two groups is more likely to play a positive role when these two groups are more heterogeneous.
AB - This study explores two reasons for why and when firm innovation may not benefit from the presence of foreign technocrats in top management teams, who represent a ‘minority-in- minority’ status due to their membership of two minority sub-groups (foreigners and technology experts). First, foreign technocrats may face greater social barriers to exert their human capital because their minority-in-minority status brings about twice as much pressure from the majority (the double jeopardy hypothesis). Second, the similarity resulting from the overlap of the two executive groups may render their sub-group peers apprehensive about a loss of self-identity, thus leading to horizontal hostility (the narcissism of minor difference theory). Using a study of 1635 Chinese manufacturing firms to compare the joint effects of similar sub-group peers and CEOs, we find that the overlap of two groups is more likely to play a positive role when these two groups are more heterogeneous.
KW - Double jeopardy hypothesis
KW - Innovation
KW - Internationalization
KW - Narcissism of minor difference theory
KW - Top management teams (TMTs)
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85068358567&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.06.021
DO - 10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.06.021
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85068358567
SN - 0148-2963
VL - 128
SP - 728
EP - 741
JO - Journal of Business Research
JF - Journal of Business Research
ER -