This paper examines the importance of firm and managerial attributes in corporate innovation productivity. Based on the decomposition of the model R-square, we find that observable and unobservable firm characteristics explain a majority of the variation in innovation productivity. Labor economists argue that managers who are ‘raided’ (those who move to a similar position at another firm) have higher than average ability. If managers are prized for their ability to innovate, then on average we would expect raided managers to improve innovation productivity at their new firms, especially in those where innovation is more valuable. We, however, find no significant relationship between raided managers and innovation productivity in their new firms, thereby reinforcing our evidence that it is visionary companies that matter more for innovation productivity of a firm.
Keywords: Innovation; Managers; R2 Decomposition; Patents/Citations
