Independent technical directors and their effect on corporate innovation in China

Abstract

As outside advisors, independent directors serve as both consultants and monitors. Based on empirical studies of corporate innovation and independent directors, we used data from listed firms in China from 2007 to 2017 to examine the effect of hiring independent technical directors on the board of directors. This study focused on a firm’s innovation performance and the extent to which this performance is influenced by the relevance of a director’s expertise to the activities of the firm. The results show that when the technical expertise of an independent director is relevant to the operational field of the firm, the firm should perform better in terms of innovation. This result is still significant when applying the two-stage instrumental variable method, showing a higher significance when using the exogenous event of the 2014 Wenfeng.plc case. Moreover, independent technical directors influence innovation primarily by encouraging firms to deepen their current field of research rather than expanding to other fields. Our findings can guide corporations to hire more relevant independent technical directors and can help the government design more accurate policies that promote innovation and entrepreneurship.