Challenges in internationalization of R&D teams: Impact of foreign technocrats in top management teams on firm innovation

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 tec...

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Main Authors: Zhang, Yameng, Sharma, Piyush, Xu, Yekun, Wu, Zhan
Format: Journal Article
Published: Elsevier 2019
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/76007
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author Zhang, Yameng
Sharma, Piyush
Xu, Yekun
Wu, Zhan
author_facet Zhang, Yameng
Sharma, Piyush
Xu, Yekun
Wu, Zhan
author_sort Zhang, Yameng
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description 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.
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format Journal Article
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institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T11:06:04Z
publishDate 2019
publisher Elsevier
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-760072022-08-12T05:09:16Z Challenges in internationalization of R&D teams: Impact of foreign technocrats in top management teams on firm innovation Zhang, Yameng Sharma, Piyush Xu, Yekun Wu, Zhan 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. 2019 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/76007 10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.06.021 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Elsevier fulltext
spellingShingle Zhang, Yameng
Sharma, Piyush
Xu, Yekun
Wu, Zhan
Challenges in internationalization of R&D teams: Impact of foreign technocrats in top management teams on firm innovation
title Challenges in internationalization of R&D teams: Impact of foreign technocrats in top management teams on firm innovation
title_full Challenges in internationalization of R&D teams: Impact of foreign technocrats in top management teams on firm innovation
title_fullStr Challenges in internationalization of R&D teams: Impact of foreign technocrats in top management teams on firm innovation
title_full_unstemmed Challenges in internationalization of R&D teams: Impact of foreign technocrats in top management teams on firm innovation
title_short Challenges in internationalization of R&D teams: Impact of foreign technocrats in top management teams on firm innovation
title_sort challenges in internationalization of r&d teams: impact of foreign technocrats in top management teams on firm innovation
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/76007