Abstract: Innovation will become the engine of economic development under the “new normal”.On that account,this paper selects the A-share listed companies (2007-2016) in Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges as the research samples;in view of the process and systematicness of innovation behavior,it employs comprehensive indicators to measure innovation behavior,and studies the heterogeneity of equity incentive on innovation behavior based on management risk preference.The results show that 1) the implementation of equity incentive can promote enterprise innovation behavior;2) a higher risk the management prefers to take renders a better innovation behavior;3) the effect of equity incentive is different under different management risk preferences,among which,for risk averse management,the impact is particularly significant.The paper also explores different innovative incentive effects of specific equity incentive scheme design on different management with different risk attitudes from three dimensions namely incentive mode selection,incentive strength design and incentive validity period,so as to provide empirical evidence for the specific design of management incentive scheme for Chinese enterprises in transformation.

Key words: Equity incentive, innovation behavior, risk preference, heterogeneity