企业政治能力、高管过度自信与对外直接投资政治风险承担

Political Capability of MNE, Overconfidence of CEO and Political-risk Taking of OFDI

本文以2008~2019年中国上市企业对外直接投资事件为研究样本,探索企业政治能力对企业对外直接投资政治风险承担的影响。研究发现,企业政治能力越强,越倾向于投资到高政治风险区位,高管过度自信是企业政治能力对企业对外直接投资政治风险承担影响的传导机制;然而,该影响仅在国有企业和当东道国与母国政治风险距离较小时存在。上述结果表明,高政治风险区位的“机遇预期效应”在国有企业对外直接投资政治风险承担中起主导作用,而政治能力是影响企业投资高政治风险区位“机遇预期效应”的前置因素,东道国与母国较小的政治风险距离也是企业政治能力在高政治风险区位发挥作用的情境条件。本文推进了企业对外直接投资政治风险承担的研究,对企业风险决策的制定具有重要启示意义。

In recent years,the overall scale of Chinese OFDI has gradually increased.In the choice of OFDI location,more and more MNEs show the preference of political risk.For example,China’s investment in 65 countries which is along the“the Belt and Road”is mainly distributed in Asia and Europe,with 60.4%locations of high political risk.This shows that more and more MNEs tend to invest in locations of high political risk,that is,MNEs tend to undertake political risk in OFDI.This paper takes the MNEs’OFDI location choice of high political risk as the core issue,and discusses the mechanism of political-risk undertaking of MNEs’OFDI by integrating the factors affecting the heterogeneity of MNEs at the organizational and individual levels.Unlike the existing literatures,which study the political-risk undertaking of MNEs’OFDI from the organizational or individual level of enterprise heterogeneity alone,this paper realizes the integration of the two levels,and constructs a theoretical model of the impact of the organizational level of MNEs’political ability and the individual level of CEO overconfidence on the political-risk undertaking of MNEs’OFDI.It is proved that MNEs are more willing to undertake political risks in OFDI due to the expectation of opportunities in the location of high political risk.This expected effect mainly depends on the impact of the political ability of MNE on the value maintenance and value creation of MNE.The explanation of the transmission mechanism of CEO overconfidence not only effectively responds to“how the political ability of the MNE at the organizational level can promote the political-risk undertaking of the MNEs’OFDI”,but also gives a tentative answer to“how the CEO’s cognition at the individual level can realize the connection with the organizational level”,It not only overcomes the limitations of studying the impact of the organizational and individual levels of MNEs heterogeneity on the political-risk undertaking of OFDI,but also provides a solid micro-basis for the research on the political-risk undertaking of MNEs’OFDI,which is a supplement and improvement to the research on the political-risk undertaking of MNEs’OFDI.This paper takes the OFDI events of A-shares firms in 2008~2019 as the research objects to explore the impact of MNEs’political capacity on the political-risk undertaking of MNEs’OFDI,and introduces the overconfidence of CEO as the intermediary variable of the impact of MNEs’political capacity on the political-risk undertaking of MNEs’OFDI,and constructs a complete model of political risk of MNEs’OFDI.At the same time,based on the nature of MNEs’ownership and the distance of political risk between the host country and the home country,the samples are grouped to test the heterogeneity of the impact of MNEs’political capacity on the political-risk undertaking of MNEs’OFDI.The empirical results show that:The stronger the political ability of MNE,the more inclined they are to invest in the location with high political risk.The overconfidence of CEO plays an intermediary role in the relationship between the political ability of MNE and the political-risk undertaking of MNEs’OFDI,that is,the political ability of MNE will promote the increase of the overconfidence of CEO,and the higher the overconfidence of CEO,the more inclined the MNEs are to invest in the location with high political risk.The further analysis finds that the different ownership nature of MNE and the different distance of political risk between the host country and the home country will have different effects on the research conclusion.The political ability of state-owned MNE will promote MNEs to invest in location of high political risk,and the intermediary effect of overconfidence of CEO is established,while the political ability of private MNE has no significant impact on the political risk of MNEs’OFDI.When the distance of political risk between the host country and the home country is small,the political ability can promote MNEs to invest in location of high political risk,and the intermediary effect of overconfidence of CEO is established.When the distance of political risk between the host country and the home country is large,the above conclusion is not established.