Board governance, sustainable innovation capability and corporate expansion: Empirical data from private listed companies in China

Abstract

Within fierce market competition, economic integration acceleration, information technology development, customer demands that are more complex than ever before and product life cycle acceleration have greatly increased the complexity and uncertainty of the operating environment of Chinese private listed companies. Considering the special situation and the current situation of the enterprise development phase in China, the shaping and upgrading of sustainable innovation capability for Chinese private listed companies has become an important issue of common concern in academia and practice. Using 4833 sets of data from private listed companies in China in four consecutive years, we studied the relationship between board governance, sustainable innovation capability and firm expansion empirically based on stewardship theory and principal-agent theory. The results show that centralized leadership structure formed by chief executive officer (CEO) duality has a positive effect on the sustainable innovation capability of Chinese listed companies; director compensation incentive has a positive impact on the sustainable innovation capability of Chinese listed companies; sustainable innovation capability has a positive effect on the firm expansion of Chinese listed companies; and centralized board leadership structure and director compensation incentive have a positive impact on the firm expansion of listed companies partially by improving the sustainable innovation capability.