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Research on Science & Technology Talents

Impact of Leading Talents, Knowledge Breadth and Tie Strength on Breakthrough Innovations 

Wang Wei1 , Du Meiling2 , Ran Haoyun1 , Yu Qiyang1 

(1. Business School, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450001, China; 2. School of Business Administration, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510641, China)

Abstract: In recent years, despite the fact that the number of R&D employees, the investment in R&D, the number of patent application and authorization, and the number of international sci⁃ entific and technological papers published in China rank the forefront in the world, the innova⁃ tion of Chinese enterprises on the whole presents the characteristics of "big but not strong, nu⁃ merous but not excellent". As Chinese leader pointed out, "the situation that China's key core technologies are controlled by others has not been fundamentally changed", China still has not re⁃ lieved the stranglehold some countries have tightened on the development of core technologies. At the same time, the latecomer advantage formed by China's abundant resources and low labor costs has increasingly weakened the driving force for the development of Chinese enterprises. It is urgent for Chinese enterprises to break technological monopolies and carry out technological breakthroughs. The world is undergoing profound transformation, and the international order is undergoing reshuffling. In this case, challenges and opportunities accompany each other. Chi⁃ nese enterprises are facing a once-in-a-century opportunity to catch up. In this regard, to en⁃ hance the breakthrough innovation capability and speed up efforts to achieve greater selfreliance and strength in science and technology is the fundamental method to solve the existing difficulties and achieve catching up and surpassing. Further, with respect to the advancing of breakthrough innovation, it is the inventors who un⁃ dertake such tasks. Hence, this paper takes R&D personnel as the research object to explore the impact of the three individual attribute dimensions of leading talents, knowledge breadth, and tie strength on breakthrough innovation. In particular, this paper selects the patent data applied by Huawei Technologies Co., LTD. in China from 1995 to 2021 as the research sample. All patent data are from the published patent data in the China Patent Database, which is developed and provided by the China National Intellectual Property Administration and the China Patent Infor⁃ mation Center. After sorting, the final sample of this paper includes 58 640 patent data, involv⁃ ing 28 420 R&D personnel. In addition, this paper collects and summarizes all the science and technology-related awards of China, Guangdong and Shenzhen received by Huawei Technologies Co., LTD. from 2000 to 2021, with a total of 168 award records. Drawing on the patent data, this paper explores the impact of leading talents, knowledge breadth, and tie strength on break⁃ through innovation by employing the Logit model. The findings suggest that all the leading tal⁃ ents, knowledge breadth, and tie strength exert positive influences on breakthrough innovation. In theory, the contribution of this paper includes the following three aspects. Firstly, there is little existing literature exploring the unique impact of breakthrough innovation by leading tal⁃ ents. Starting from this, this paper selects the key nodes of breakthrough innovation at the indi⁃ vidual level, namely leading talents, and explores its impact on breakthrough innovation, which expands the research on breakthrough innovation, enhances the theoretical understanding of leading talents, and makes up for the shortcomings of existing research. Secondly, this paper dis⁃ tinguishes between leading talents and general R&D personnel at the individual level, and draws the conclusion that leading talents has a positive impact on breakthrough innovation, clarifying the innovation subject and responding to the controversy about breakthrough innovation subjects. Finally, starting from knowledge attributes and network attributes, the two variables of knowl⁃ edge breadth and tie strength are introduced, which enables this paper to comprehensively ex⁃ plore the impact of individual attributes of organizational members on breakthrough innovation by covering the dimensions of inventor types, knowledge characteristics, and network embedded⁃ ness. Such work contributes to the research on breakthrough innovation. In practice, the paper provides suggestions for managers to make targeted incentive procedures in light of individual in⁃ ventors, further laying the foundation for enhancing the breakthrough capability of enterprises and playing a better role of innovation subject in the area of new development.

Key words: leading talents; knowledge breadth; tie strength; breakthrough innovations