Unlocking corporate innovation: Leveraging peers’ innovation-related narratives
研究发现，同行企业披露的创新相关叙述会促进焦点企业的创新投资，这种效应在信息获取能力有限或竞争激烈的行业中更明显，且能带来短期市场价值提升和长期创新效率改善。
We explore whether peers’ disclosures of innovation-related narratives have spillover effects for the focal firm's innovation investment. Using a text-based methodology to develop the innovation-related narrative disclosure index (INDI), we find that higher peer INDI values are associated with increased innovation investment by the focal firm in the Chinese context. Moreover, peer effects are more pronounced when the focal firm has limited information acquisition capacity or operates in a highly competitive industry. Our further analyses reveal that peer effects diminish over time, with firms increasingly relying on more recent information for ongoing innovation. Regardless of whether they are market leaders or followers, firms can benefit from leveraging peers’ innovation-related narratives. Importantly, utilizing these narratives correlates with short-term gain in market value, medium-term improvement in innovation output, and long-term enhancement in innovation efficiency.