Learning for practice? The impact of executives' higher education experience on corporate entrepreneurship

As a significant means for companies to respond to changes in the external environment and maintain competitive advantages, corporate entrepreneurship has become a hot topic in theory and practice. This paper combines imprinting theory, social capital theory and human capital theory, and selects the data of Chinese A-share listed firms from 2007 to 2021 as the empirical research sample, and explores the formation of executives' imprints and their influence on corporate entrepreneurship from the perspective of their higher education experience. The study finds that executives' higher education experience significantly contributes to corporate entrepreneurship, especially for executives who have studied abroad and attended prestigious schools. Professional diversity contributes to the dynamic evolution of the imprints formed by executives' higher education experiences, which in turn influences the choice of entrepreneurial strategies, further reinforcing the positive relationship between executives' higher education experiences and corporate entrepreneurship. The key reason why executives' higher education experience promotes corporate entrepreneurship lies in the mediating transmission effect of information learning channels brought about by higher education experience. This study not only enriches the research results on the formation, dynamic changes and influence mechanisms of individual imprinting, but also further reveals the motivational mechanisms of corporate entrepreneurship.