Integrating Top Management's Intellectual Capital with Technology Innovation Performance of High-Tech Enterprises: A Conceptual Study

In today's knowledge-based economy, an enterprise's intellectual capital (IC) has become the main source of its competitive advantage and plays a very important role in enhancing its technology innovation performance (TIP).However, there is extremely limited research on the impact of the intellectual capital of the top management team on the technology innovation performance of Chinese high-tech SMEs, which are the main contributors to driving economic development.Based on resource-based view (RBV) theory and upper echelon theory (UET), the aim of this study is to explore the mechanism of the influence of IC on TIP of the executive team of Chinese high-tech SMEs.Senior managers of eligible high-tech SMEs in Jiangsu Province, China will participate in the online survey.Two new constructs, intellectual property protection (IPP) and technology commercialization (TC), will be added as moderating variables in this study.The data obtained from the questionnaire will provide new evidence from a Chinese perspective that the top management teams of high-tech SMEs use their IC more effectively to improve the TIP of their firms under the positive moderating effect of IPP and TC.