Abstract: Current literature argues that CEO features play an important role in the firm’s innovative development. Then how do CEO features and R&D investment jointly affect firm performance? This paper employs the World Bank's 2012 survey data on Chinese enterprises to study the impact of CEO experience, CEO gender and R&D investment on firm performance. The empirical results show that R&D investment has a significant positive impact on firm performance, while CEO experience has a non-linear impact on firm performance. Further empirical analysis shows that CEO gender has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between R&D investment and firm performance. When the CEO is a woman, R&D investment may have a stronger effect on firm performance. CEO experience also has a non-linear moderating effect on the relationship between R&D investment and firm performance. The initial accumulation of CEO's experience strengthens the positive impact of R&D investment on firm performance. However, when the CEO’s experience is overloaded, the positive moderating effect of CEO experience begins to decline or even becomes negative. This work contributes to both innovation management, agency theory and emerging gender studies.

摘要： 现有文献认为CEO特征对企业创新发展有重要影响。那么，CEO特征如何与研发投资共同作用于企业绩效？本研究以世界银行在2012年对中国企业的问卷调查数据为样本，探究CEO特征、研发投资与企业绩效的关系，实证检验了CEO经验与性别对研发投资与企业绩效关系的调节效应。研究发现研发投资对企业绩效具有显著的正向影响，而CEO经验对企业绩效具有非线性影响。进一步研究表明，CEO性别对研发投资与企业绩效关系具有显著的调节作用，当CEO为女性时，研发投资对企业绩效具有更强的提升作用。CEO经验对研发投资和企业绩效关系具有非线性调节作用，CEO初期经验的积累有助于强化研发投资对企业绩效的正向影响，但经验“超载”后，CEO经验的正向调节作用开始下降甚至可能为负。本研究结论对创新管理，经理人激励和性别化研究均有重要启示。