Abstract: Entrepreneurship is an important way to develop rural economy and boost rural revitalization. As an important informal system affecting rural governance, authority also plays a prominent role in rural enterprise management. In order to investigate the impact of entrepreneur authority on rural entrepreneurial innovation, this paper uses the data of "Thousand Villages Survey" conducted by Shanghai University of Finance and Economics to demonstrate. It is found that the absorption of scarce resources, the construction of psychological foundation, and the resistance to risk tolerance constitute three mechanisms that the authority of rural entrepreneurs positively promotes firm innovation. The relationship between firm size and marketization has a significant moderating effect, indicating that the smaller the firm size is, the lower the marketization degree is, and the more significant the positive promoting effect is. Further research shows that when the authority level of rural entrepreneurs is higher than the average authority level of the group, their enterprise innovation ability is correspondingly higher.

Key words: rural entrepreneurs, authority, enterprise innovation, enterprise scale, marketization degree