Structural holes and R&D investment: evidence from top management teams of China's A-share listed firms

The extant literature recognize that social relations and networks strengthen corporate innovation, but the contribution of the top management teams and the channel of social status and network location in corporate innovation is not well addressed. By constructing firm-to-firm matrices by top management team members' experience with the data set of China's A-share listed companies, we find that higher status and better network location with more structural holes foster corporate R&D investment and the number of invention patents, although the effect on total innovation outputs is not significant. What's more, the external and internal tunnels are further explored by testing the effect of information booming and absorptive willingness. It is confirmed that the positive impact of structural holes on corporate innovation is magnified with the penetration of high-speed rail and internet as well as high compensation incentive. This research supports the structural holes advantage theory, expands the research of the social networks, and provides reference for corporate innovation practice by taking advantages of structural holes from the top management teams.