The secret of speech: Executive extraversion and firm innovation performance based on telephone communication

Innovatively departing from conventional methodologies such as questionnaires, interviews, or text analysis, this study introduces a single-gender speech personality measurement approach to identify extraversion traits in executives from a speech perspective. Central to the research is how executive extraversion influences firm innovation performance. The research samples are derived from the audio recordings of performance conference communication calls held by Chinese listed companies on the Wind 3C conference platform. Through hierarchical regression analysis, empirical results demonstrate an inverted U-shaped relationship between executive extraversion and firm innovation performance (measured by R&D personnel input, R&D expenditure, and patent applications). The study also reveals that situational factors, including the proportion of shareholding by pressure-resistant institutional investors, incentive compensation, and equity concentration, significantly moderate the inverted U-shaped relationship. This research provides compelling evidence of the importance of executive extraversion in firm innovation performance and offers a new perspective on the mechanisms through which executive extraversion influences firm innovation performance. The single-gender speech personality recognition method allows researchers to effectively utilize executives’ speech information in the big data era. The research viewpoint and findings contribute beneficially to the Upper Echelons Theory and offer actionable insights for leveraging executive traits to bolster innovation.