以2008—2023年沪深A股上市公司为样本，以管理者短视为中介变量，系统考察耐心资本对企业双元创新的影响机制。研究结果表明：①耐心资本与探索式创新显著正相关，而与利用式创新呈现U型关系。②耐心资本投入初期，双元创新表现出“此消彼长”的非对称效应，即探索式创新水平提升而利用式创新水平下降；当投入超过临界值后，双元创新实现“协同共生”的发展态势，同步提升。③管理者短视在上述影响路径中发挥中介作用。管理者短视与探索式创新负相关，与利用式创新呈现倒U型关系：适度短视可通过资源倾斜促进利用式创新，但过度短视将同时抑制双元创新。采用工具变量法与公司固定效应回归控制内生性问题，同时通过Sasabuchi方法进一步验证非线性关系，结论仍然成立。

In the context of global economic restructuring and rapid technological advancement, innovation has become the core driver of high-quality development. However, China's innovation system exhibits a structural imbalance in ambidextrous innovation: exploitative innovation, which focuses on incremental improvements, dominates, while exploratory innovation, aimed at breakthrough technologies, lags behind. This imbalance stems from micro-level corporate dilemmas, including short-termism in resource allocation and path dependency, which are exacerbated by traditional financial systems favoring short-term returns. Against this backdrop, the concept of "patient capital" has emerged as a strategic solution to foster long-term innovation. Although prior studies confirm that patient capital fosters corporate innovation, they leave two critical gaps: the differential impact on exploratory versus exploitative innovation has not been disentangled, and the cognitive pathway through which patient capital shapes managers' resource-allocation decisions—turning long-term funds into ambidextrous R&D choices—remains theoretically underdeveloped.
This study examines how patient capital influences corporate ambidextrous innovation, with a focus on the mediating role of managerial myopia. Using the data of A-share companies listed in China's Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2008 to 2023, the study employs fixed-effects models and instrumental variable methods to address potential endogeneity issues. In this study, patient capital is set as the independent variable, which is jointly measured by the proportion of relational debt and the proportion of stable equity. The dependent variable is corporate ambidextrous innovation, where exploitative patents refer to those with the first four digits of IPC (International Patent Classification) that have appeared in the past five years, and exploratory patents refer to those with the first four digits of IPC that have never appeared before. Managerial myopia is measured by the proportion of short-term perspective words in the MD&A (Management's Discussion and Analysis) section of annual reports, with a linear transformation of multiplying by 100 twice, and is used to test the mediating effect.
The findings reveal three key insights: First, patient capital has an asymmetric effect on ambidextrous innovation—it linearly promotes exploratory innovation but exhibits a U-shaped relationship with exploitative innovation. Initially, patient capital suppresses exploitative innovation due to resource reallocation toward exploratory projects, but beyond a critical threshold of 167.77, it synergistically enhances both types of innovation. Second, managerial myopia acts as a mediator: patient capital mitigates short-termism, which in turn positively affects exploratory innovation and exhibits an inverted U-shaped relationship with exploitative innovation. Moderate myopia may temporarily boost exploitative innovation, but excessive myopia harms both innovation types. Thirdly, the mediating path of patient capital's impact on ambidextrous innovation is heterogeneous. For exploratory innovation, patient capital significantly enhances it by alleviating managerial myopia. For exploitative innovation, however, there exists a dual mechanism: when the scale of patient capital is below the critical threshold, alleviating myopia weakens exploitative innovation; once it exceeds the threshold, alleviating myopia simultaneously drives the synergistic development of both types of innovation.
This study contributes to the literature in three ways: (1) It uncovers the non-linear and asymmetric effects of patient capital on ambidextrous innovation, enriching the understanding of how capital heterogeneity influences innovation strategies. (2) It introduces managerial myopia as a cognitive mediator, bridging the gap between financial resources and innovation outcomes. (3) It provides empirical evidence for policymakers and firms to optimize capital allocation and governance mechanisms, emphasizing the need to cultivate long-term-oriented investment ecosystems.
The implications are twofold. For policymakers, expanding patient capital,particularly in strategic industries,is crucial to cross the tipping point for synergistic innovation. For firms, aligning managerial incentives with long-term innovation metrics and dynamically adjusting resource allocation can mitigate short-termism and unlock dual innovation potential. Limitations include the exclusion of non-listed firms and reliance on textual measures for managerial myopia. Future research could explore cross-industry heterogeneity and alternative measures of capital patience.