Drawing upon social cognitive and learning theories and social embeddedness perspective, we develop a conceptual framework for exploring the impact of immigrant founder chief executive officers on firm performance through firm innovation. We propose that immigrant founder chief executive officers are more likely to lead their firm with an innovative mentality due to their biculturalism, thus enhancing firm innovation and performance. We suggest that the impact of immigrant founder chief executive officers on firm innovation is moderated by cultural distance such that moderate cultural distance results in greater innovation, and ultimately, performance. We also indicate that top management team and board members’ local social capital, as well as immigrant founder chief executive officers’ foreign social capital, enhance the proposed relationships. A discussion of the relationships, limitations, and future research directions is provided.

借鉴社会认知和学习理论以及社会嵌入的观点，我们开发了一个概念框架，用于探索移民创始人首席执行官通过公司创新对公司绩效的影响。我们建议移民创始人首席执行官由于他们的双重文化更有可能以创新的心态领导他们的公司，从而提高公司的创新和绩效。我们认为，移民创始人首席执行官对公司创新的影响受文化距离的影响，适度的文化距离会导致更大的创新，并最终导致绩效。我们还指出，高层管理团队和董事会成员的当地社会资本，以及移民创始人首席执行官的外国社会资本，增强了拟议的关系。