METHODS
Sample and data collection
Managers of technology firms in three high tech
industrial parks in China’s Shandong, Guangdong,
and Sichuan provinces were surveyed. Questionnaires
were hand delivered to 200 firms randomly
selected from the entire population of
these three parks. The firms selected were from
a variety of high tech industries.2 Each firm
received two different questionnaires in separately
sealed envelopes addressed to the chief executive
officer (CEO) and the chief technology officer
(CTO), respectively. The questionnaires were
developed in English and translated into Chinese
using back-translation procedures (Brislin, 1980).
They were pretested to ensure that the questions
were clear, relevant, and interpreted as expected.
Complete and usable responses were obtained
from 122 firms, a response rate of 61 percent.
Following Kanuk and Berenson (1975), potential
nonresponse bias was assessed by looking for differences
between early and late respondents in
terms of firm age, size, TMT conflicts, and the
organization’s innovation. The nonsignificant correlations
indicate minimal nonresponse bias.
The CEOs were asked to report each TMT member’s
functional background as well as to assess
the firm’s innovation record and the environmental
variables, as they are arguably the most knowledgeable
potential respondents about the firm’s
strategy and environment. The extent of TMT cognitive
and affective conflicts was rated by both the
CEOs and the CTOs, allowing interrater reliability
to be checked for these team-level variables.