The founder as the microfoundation of slack resource and firms' R&D investment

Da Teng; Chengchun Li; Xiangdong Sun; Sailesh Tanna

doi:10.1017/jmo.2023.62

The founder as the microfoundation of slack resource and firms' R&D investment

Da Teng
, Chengchun Li
, Xiangdong Sun
, Sailesh Tanna

Beijing University of Chemical Technology
Changshu Institute of Technology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

49 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

This paper studies the relationship between slack and research and development (R&D) investment by addressing the role of the founder as the “microfoundation” among Chinese newly listed firms. We propose a contingent approach to understanding the slack-R&D investment relationship by examining the influence of the founder's human capital and social ties, which is distinguished into political and managerial ties. Our results show that the founder’s human capital, measured by its educational level, strengthens the relationship between absorbed and unabsorbed slack resources and R&D investment. We also find that the founder’s managerial ties strengthen the relationship between resource slack and R&D intensity, whereas political ties weaken that link. Our results demonstrate the founder’s crucial role in underpinning resource utilization in newly listed firms and emphasise the importance of social ties in driving firms’ R&D activities in emerging economies.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1455-1476
Number of pages	22
Journal	Journal of Management and Organization
Volume	31
Issue number	3
Early online date	23 Nov 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1017/jmo.2023.62
Publication status	Published - May 2025

Bibliographical note

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC BY license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Funder

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities under Grant No. BUCTRC202106 and the Social Sciences Youth Foundation of the Ministry of Education in China under Grant No. 22YJCGJW004.

Funding

Funders	Funder number
Ministry of Education China	22YJCGJW004
Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities	BUCTRC202106

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 9 Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure

Keywords

founder
microfoundation
slack
social ties
R&D
newly listed firms

Access to Document

10.1017/jmo.2023.62Licence: CC BY

PublishedFinal published version, 656 KBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "The founder as the microfoundation of slack resource and firms' R\&D investment",

abstract = "This paper studies the relationship between slack and research and development (R\&D) investment by addressing the role of the founder as the “microfoundation” among Chinese newly listed firms. We propose a contingent approach to understanding the slack-R\&D investment relationship by examining the influence of the founder's human capital and social ties, which is distinguished into political and managerial ties. Our results show that the founder{\textquoteright}s human capital, measured by its educational level, strengthens the relationship between absorbed and unabsorbed slack resources and R\&D investment. We also find that the founder{\textquoteright}s managerial ties strengthen the relationship between resource slack and R\&D intensity, whereas political ties weaken that link. Our results demonstrate the founder{\textquoteright}s crucial role in underpinning resource utilization in newly listed firms and emphasise the importance of social ties in driving firms{\textquoteright} R\&D activities in emerging economies.",

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AU - Tanna, Sailesh

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AB - This paper studies the relationship between slack and research and development (R&D) investment by addressing the role of the founder as the “microfoundation” among Chinese newly listed firms. We propose a contingent approach to understanding the slack-R&D investment relationship by examining the influence of the founder's human capital and social ties, which is distinguished into political and managerial ties. Our results show that the founder’s human capital, measured by its educational level, strengthens the relationship between absorbed and unabsorbed slack resources and R&D investment. We also find that the founder’s managerial ties strengthen the relationship between resource slack and R&D intensity, whereas political ties weaken that link. Our results demonstrate the founder’s crucial role in underpinning resource utilization in newly listed firms and emphasise the importance of social ties in driving firms’ R&D activities in emerging economies.

KW - founder

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KW - slack

KW - social ties

KW - R&D

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The founder as the microfoundation of slack resource and firms' R&D investment

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funder

Funding

UN SDGs

Keywords

Access to Document

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