CEO career variety, firm innovativeness, and the interplay effects of independent directors

While firm innovativeness has been identified as a critical driver of firm growth and survival, the determinants of firm innovativeness have yet sufficiently explored. This study addresses this research gap by investigating the direct effect of CEOs’ career experience on firm innovativeness and the moderating effects of independent directors from the upper-echelons perspective. Using a sample of 2,397 firm-year observations of 261 firms in Taiwanese semiconductor and electronic-optical industries from the period 2002 to 2013, we found that: (1) CEO career variety has a positive effect on firm innovativeness; (2) simply increasing or decreasing the ratio of independent directors in a board cannot enhance the positive effect of CEO career variety on firm innovativeness; (3) the positive moderating effect of independent directors can be demonstrated only when they have higher levels of shared expertise with their CEOs.