On 18 June 2021, the 13th session of the "Xixian Forum of Income Distribution and Public Finance", co-organised by the Public Finance and Taxation Institute and IIDPF, was successfully held in Room 127 Wenqin Building. Dr. Shengjun Jiang, Assistant Professor of School of Economics and Management, Wuhan University, delivered a keynote speech entitled Top Executives' Research Experience and Corporate Innovation: Evidence from China. The forum was chaired by Professor Lu Yuanping, Executive Vice Director of IIDPF. Professor Yang Canming, President of ZUEL and Director of IIDPF, Professor Zhang Kezhong, Dean of the School of Public Finance and Taxation and Vice Director of IIDPF, Dr. Wan Xin and Zhang Fan, researchers of IIDPF, and more than 10 faculty members and students attended the forum.
The forum began with an appointment ceremony. Dr Jiang Shengjun was appointed as an IIDPF Adjunct Fellow and was presented with a certificate by the Director, Professor Yang Canming. Dr. Shengjun Jiang graduated from Wuhan University with a Bachelor's degree in Economics in the School of Economics and Management and from Renmin University of China with a Master's degree in Western Economics, and received her Master's and PhD degrees in Economics from the Department of Economics at the Ohio State University. Dr. Jiang also serves as an editorial reviewer for the Oxford Economic Papers, the American Economic Association (AEA), the Midwest Economic Association (MEA), and the Chinese Economics Association (CES). Dr Jiang Shengjun's high level of professional research ability and industry influence will help enhance IIDPF's research standard and influence in the academic community.
In this forum, Dr Shengjun Jiang examined the relationship between the research experience of executives in Chinese manufacturing companies and corporate innovation from the perspective of human capital. Because of these policies, an increasing number of professors and researchers are getting involved in company management and putting their academic expertise into practice. In the empirical analysis, she used Chinese A-share listed manufacturing companies as the study population, and used the total number of corporate patents, the number of invention patents, and the number of patent citations as variables to analyse in depth whether top corporate executives (defined as board chairmen and/or chief executive officers) who had been professors or researchers helped to promote corporate innovation. After considering the three mediating effects of endogeneity and enterprise basic research, cooperation and incentives, the empirical analysis found that researchers who had worked in universities and research institutions had a catalytic effect on the encouragement and support of enterprise innovation and entrepreneurship, and that the construction of an efficient collaborative innovation system between industry, academia and research was found to be conducive to encouraging the flow of top talent between industry, academia and research.
After the presentation, students and faculty had an in-depth exchange of views on corporate innovation and actively expressed their views. Professor Zhang Kezhong suggested that the article be enriched by defining a clearer definition of the research and education experience of corporate executives and by including a comparative study of the role of executives moving from research to production versus remaining in production in promoting corporate innovation.
Innovation plays an important role in promoting economic growth and achieving sustainable development in China, and there is also a strong link between it and income distribution. The views shared by Dr Jiang Shengjun at the forum provide additional research ideas for IIDPF in relevant researches.