From adversity to innovation: the ambidextrous innovation effect of board chairs’ poverty experience

Purpose This study draws on upper echelons and imprinting theories to examine whether and how board chairs’ early-life poverty experience shapes firms’ approaches to innovation (exploitation and/or exploration) and to explore its boundary conditions. Design/methodology/approach We used a longitudinal dataset of Chinese publicly listed manufacturing firms from 2006 to 2018 and adopted a negative binomial regression model. We also utilized a fixed-effects model to control for the influence of time-invariant variables. Findings Results are as follows. First, firms led by board chairs with early-life poverty experience are more likely to favor exploitation-dominant innovation rather than exploratory innovation. Second, the relationship between board chairs’ early-life poverty experience and exploitation-dominant innovation is more pronounced when the living standards of residents in focal firms’ location are lower and the focal firms possess fewer slack resources. Originality/value Our study extends the existing literature on ambidextrous innovation and organizational consequences of executives’ early-life adversities by showing that the impact of board chairs’ early-life poverty experience is on the preference for exploitation-oriented innovation strategy rather than the balance of ambidextrous innovation. Findings of this study also contribute to the individual imprinting research by considering the subsequent change of imprinting effect at its persistence.