Informal intervention, information availability and innovation efficiency in state-owned enterprises
研究了基于政府领导与企业经理社会关系的非正式干预如何通过提升信息可得性来提高国有企业的创新效率，并分析了信息提供者和接收者特征的影响。
Innovation management studies have focused on improving innovation efficiency in state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Given the close relationship between government and SOEs, whether government intervention can impact firm innovation efficiency is an interesting question but underexplored. This study introduces a unique form of informal government intervention based on social connections between government leaders and firm managers and examines its impact on innovation efficiency using local SOEs innovation data during the 2008–2019 period. Our findings demonstrate that informal government intervention can enhance SOEs' innovation efficiency, mainly by improving SOEs' information availability. Moreover, the connection-based information availability has greater efficiency-enhancing impacts when the information providers (politicians) possess more external knowledge, and when the information receivers (SOE managers) belong to less technology-intensive industries . These findings illuminate how informal government intervention helps SOEs improve innovation efficiency by reducing agency risks. They also provide valuable policy insights for improving innovation efficiency in SOEs through strengthening institutional arrangements on information transparency.