私营企业的企业家背景、多元化战略与企业业绩

Entrepreneur Backgrounds,Diversification,and Firm Performance

本文运用"高阶理论"考察了私营企业的企业家背景、多元化战略选择以及企业业绩之间的关系。研究发现,与低学历的、年长的、创业前没有"企业负责人"经历的企业家相比,高学历的、年轻的以及创业之前曾担任过"企业负责人"的企业家更倾向于选择多元化战略。研究也发现,高学历、低年龄、"企业负责人"经历与高的销售额、资产额、资产增长率和净资产增长率正相关;多元化战略能够带来更大的资产规模、更高的资产增长率和净资产增长率,但对利润率没有显著的影响。同时,企业家的背景与多元化战略的交互作用同样影响着企业的业绩。创业前有过"企业负责人"经历的企业家采用多元化战略可以带来更好的业绩,而没有这种经历的企业家则会收到负面的效果。有意思的是,高学历和低学历的企业家采用多元化战略都提高了企业的销售额、资产额和净资产增长率,而中等学历的企业家采取多元化战略则带来了相反的效果。本文最后对该现象的可能原因进行了探讨。

This article examines the relationship between entrepre- neur backgrounds, the choice of diversification strategy, and firm performance from upper echelons perspective. Using a large survey on Chinese private firms, we find that entrepreneurs who are young, have higher educational achievement, and have prior management experiences are more likely to pursue diversification strategy compared to those entrepreneurs who are old, have lower educational achievement, and without prior management experiences. We also find the impact of entrepreneur background upon firm performance： entrepreneurs who are young, have higher educational achievement, and have prior management experiences contribute positively to the sales, asset scale, asset growth and equity growth of their firms. Evidence shows that diversification contributed to greater asset scale and growth, but not necessarily to higher profit rate. Meanwhile, the interaction between entrepreneur background and diversification has a significant impact upon firm performance. Prior management experience is an important mediator. Entrepreneurs with prior management experiences promote sales, asset scale, asset growth, equity growth and gross margin through diversification compared to those entrepreneurs without such experiences. Interestingly, when education serves as a mediator, curvilinear relationship exists between diversification and firm performance. Entrepreneurs with either high educational achievement or low educational achievement increase sales, asset scale and equity growth when diversification is adopted, while entrepreneurs with middle-level of educational achievement tends to cause negative effect on firm performance when diversification is adopted. The paper then discusses the possible reasons bchind these findings. We argue that the choice of diversification is determined by the relative weight of strategic preference and resource constraints. The positive influence of higher educational achievement and prior management experience upon the choice of diversification points to the importance of resource acquisition. The paper also gives suggestions to practitioners based on our research findings.