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Professor independent directors have been the subject of academic debate as to whether they can improve corporate innovation performance. Accordingly, this paper aims to investigate the relationship between professor independent directors, the marketization process and corporate innovation performance in China.

Using a sample of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2014 to 2017, this study examines how professor independent directors and the (low and high) marketization process affect corporate innovation performance.

The empirical analysis of this yields the following main results. First, enterprises with a higher proportion of professor independent directors outperform those with a low proportion of professor independent directors in terms of corporate innovation. Second, the study of introducing the marketization process finds that there is no “market failure”. Third, while professor independent directors have a significant association with innovation performance in the high-marketization group, this association is negligible in the low-marketization group, indicating that there is no “substitution effect”.

This research provides empirical evidence to support the hiring of professors with relevant backgrounds as independent directors who can contribute meaningfully to corporate governance and innovation while also fostering industrial transformation. This study also identifies that the role of professor independent directors in facilitating corporate innovation is more effective in regions with a high degree of marketization than in regions with a low degree of marketization, implying that increasing marketization benefits the role of professor independent directors in facilitating corporate innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to address the following question: how managerial ties impact firm business model innovation (BMI) in the context of transition economies.

The authors present a conceptual model that links managerial ties, organizational learning (explorative and exploitative learning), opportunity recognition and BMI together.

This study finds that managerial ties take effect through two paths: one direct path and one indirect path. First, managerial ties can impact BMI directly through exploitative and explorative learning. Second, managerial ties can impact BMI indirectly through explorative learning and opportunity recognition.

First, firm managers from transition economies should learn to reinvent their business models by taking full advantage of managerial ties. Second, firm managers should take appropriate actions to transfer managerial ties into BMI.

This study contributes to existing literature in two major ways. First, this study enriches literature on the antecedents to BMI from a social network perspective. Second, this study opens the “black box” between managerial ties and BMI in the context of transition economies.