Abstract: As the micro-level driver of the high-quality development of China's economy, enterprises have shown signs of drifting away from the real economy, and this has aroused widespread concern in academic circles. In this context, this paper, based on the heterogeneity of career experiences in a sample of Chinese A-share listed enterprises in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2008 to 2019, empirically investigates the impact of senior management human capital on enterprises' diversion out of the real economy as well as the mechanism underlyimg the impact. The results show that the heterogeneity of senior management's career experience has a significant inhibitory effect on enterprises' diversion out of the real economy, and this conclusion still hold after the endogeneity issue is taken into consideration and a series of robustness tests are conducted. The mechanism analysis shows that the inhibitory effect of the heterogeneity of senior management's career experience on enterprises' diversion out of the real economy is mainly achieved by reducing the overconfidence of managers. The heterogeneity test shows that the inhibitory effect of heterogeneity of senior management's career experience on enterprises' diversion out of the real economy is more obvious in the context of low environmental uncertainty or private enterprises or management shareholding. This study theoretically enriches the research on the heterogeneity of senior management's career experience and provides supporting evidence and practical suggestions for promoting the sound development of enterprises.

Key words: senior management, human capital, enterprises' diversion out of the real economy, heterogeneity of career experiences