Abstract: Taking the data of the listed companies in Shenzhen stock exchange from 2013 to 2015 as samples, this paper explores the relationship between the institutional investors’ field investigation and the enterprise innovation performances. The results show that institutional investors’ investigation can improve the innovation performance. When the heterogeneity among the investors is distinguished, the securities companies can not only play a role of supervision in promoting the listed companies to carry out substantial innovation, but also induce the listed companies to carry out strategic innovation so as to cater to investors’ demand for innovative conception. The publicly offered funds, the privately offered funds and the insurance companies would focus more on the substantial innovation of the listed companies; their supervision can promote the substantial innovation of the listed companies, but not induce strategic innovation. Furthermore, in the companies with more agency conflicts and worse information transparency, the field investigation of institutional investors will play a more important role in promoting enterprise innovation.

Key words: investigation and survey conducted by institutional investors; corporate characteristics; substantial innovation; strategic innovation