模仿同构对企业国际化-绩效关系的影响--基于制度理论正当性视角的实证研究

Influence of Mimetic Isomorphism on Firms' Internationalization—Performance Relationship——An Empirical Study Based on Legitimacy Perspective in Institutional Theory

中国企业对外直接投资连续13年高速增长并位列全球三甲,但面临国际化水平较低、国际化经验不足、国际化绩效较差等诸多问题。在国际化能提高绩效时,企业进行国际扩张是合理的选择,为什么还有许多企业在国际化绩效并不好的情况下也选择国际化?制度理论认为,企业开展的很多经营活动不是为了更高效而是为了更相似,当组织场域内的成功企业或相似企业采用国际化战略时,现有企业为了获得制度正当性,也将通过国际化经营进行模仿同构。本文基于制度理论正当性视角和组织场域的模仿同构行为,采用2009—2014年中国制造业上市公司数据进行实证分析,结果发现:1作为新兴经济体中的后发企业,中国企业绩效随国际化程度的变动关系呈现低国际化程度时与绩效负相关、高国际化程度时与绩效正相关的U型形态;总体上,中国企业国际化与绩效间关系已经是正相关关系。2基于制度正当性而进行的模仿同构对企业的国际化—绩效关系具有显著的积极调节作用,不管是本文构造的相似企业模仿指数还是成功企业模仿指数,都能有效增强企业国际化—绩效的正相关关系,或有效减弱两者之间的负相关关系。这说明,企业可以通过模仿同构而获得更多组织正当性、改善国际化绩效。这一独特的制度正当性理论视角,将给企业国际化—绩效关系研究,贡献以组织场域中的模仿同构作为调节因素的企业国际化绩效改善机制。

The outward direct investments （ODI） of China enterprises have increased for continuous 13 years and China has been one of the largest three powers in the world. However, there exist many problems in China＇s ODI, such as low international level, lack of international experience, bad international performance, etc. If internationalization could improve performance, the geographic expanding is a reasonable choice for firms. But why do many enterprises go abroad when their international performances are unsatisfactory？ In institutional theory views, many processes of firms occur to make them more similar with each other instead of making them more efficient. When successful enterprises or similar enterprises in the same organizational field adopt international strategy, the focal firms will also choose internationalization to obtain institutional legitimacy by mimetic isomorphism. So based on legitimacy perspective in institutional theory and mimetic isomorphism in organizational field, we analyze data from China listed firms in manufacturing industry from 2009 to 2014 and get following results： （~）As latecomers from emerging economies suffering liability of newness and liability of foreignness, the internationalization-performance relation of China firms appears to be U-shape, which means negative correlation while firms have low degree of internationalization and positive correlation while firms have high degree of internationalization. Nevertheless, it shows a positive internationalization-performance relation as a whole. @）The mimetic isomorphism for institutional legitimacy has significant positive moderating effect on firms＇ internationalization-performance relation. Both similar-firm-mimetic index and successful-firm-mimetic index constructed by us can strengthen the positive correlation of internationalization-performance, or weaken the negative correlation. This shows that firms can obtain more organizational legitimacy by mimetic isomorphism and then improve their international performance. This unique organizational legitimacy theoretical perspective will contribute a mechanism of international performance improving to internationalization-performance study area by taking mimetic isomorphism in organizational field as a moderator.