*Article* **The Impact of TMT Experience Heterogeneity on Enterprise Innovation Quality: Empirical Analysis on Chinese Listed Companies**

**Rao Ma, Wendong Lv \* and Yao Zhao**

Business School, University of International Business Economics, Beijing 100029, China **\*** Correspondence: lwd@uibe.edu.cn; Tel.: +86-15269814708

**Abstract:** High-quality innovation can solve the "bottleneck" problem of key enterprise technologies and drive the high-quality development of enterprises. Therefore, how to improve innovation quality has become a growing concern in the academic industry. In previous studies, the impact of TMT experience heterogeneity on enterprise innovation quality has not been well explored. Based on the panel data of Chinese A-share listed companies, this paper explored how TMT experience heterogeneity affects enterprise innovation quality. The following constitutes our findings: (1) TMT functional experience heterogeneity positively affects partner diversity to promote innovation quality, while industrial experience heterogeneity shows the opposite result. (2) Enterprise partner diversity partially mediates the relationship between TMT experience heterogeneity and innovation quality. (3) TMT technological participation positively regulates the relationship between TMT experience heterogeneity and enterprise partner diversity. This paper gave theoretical support for enterprises to play the role of TMT experience heterogeneity in enhancing innovation quality, and we extended the research on TMT heterogeneity based on empirical analysis. This study also provided new micro evidence for enterprises to use diverse partners to improve innovation quality.

**Keywords:** TMT experience heterogeneity; innovation quality; partner diversity; TMT technological participation
