The Influence of Interlocking Director Network Location on Enterprise Performance—Adjustment based on Redundant Resources and Regional Development Level

Abstract

This study examines the impact of network of interlocking directors’ network location on enterprise performance using panel dataset drawn from 1856 firm-year observations during the period 2013-2018 in China’s listed companies. The moderating effects of external development level and internal absorbed slack and unabsorbed slack resources on the impact were investigated. We find that network centrality has positive effect on firm performance；absorbed slack negatively moderates the relationship between network centrality and enterprise performance, unabsorbed slack have positive moderating effect, but regional development level have no significant moderating effect. Further analysis showed that redundant resources and regional development level have bidirectional adjusting effect, the variation of interlocking director network location has negative moderating on enterprise performance. Compared with state-owned enterprises, network centrality of non-state-owned enterprises has a positive moderating on enterprise performance, compared with the central and western regions, the network position of interlocking directors in the eastern region has a positive moderating on corporate performance.