生生不息:破解绩效导向的悖论

“Live Long and Prosper”: A Dialogue with the Performance-Orientation Paradox

基于经济学正统的股东至上主义形成的绩效导向,过于强调利润最大化和股东价值最大化而忽视其他利益相关者的福祉,会加重管理者的"短视",强化对已有资源能力的利用,降低探索等风险高的创新性活动,从而陷入马奇所强调的"能力陷阱"或者米勒的"伊卡洛斯悖论",降低企业的韧性及适应能力,增加企业失败的风险。迄今,西方一些学者提出的解决方案并未跳出绩效导向的悖论框架。本文基于阴阳理论、组织韧性理论和利益相关者理论建立一个生生不息导向的理论框架,让组织目标回到"道"——中国元典哲学中核心、本质的能量,"道"的创生、"道"的不断涌动和持续变化,即《易经》所谓的"生生之大德"。本文进一步识别了前置因素——董事会的天下思维如何通过影响中介变量,进而影响生生不息导向及其可能引致的战略后果,增强企业开放式创新的程度以及更好地平衡企业间的竞合关系。

The performance-orientation is based on the shareholder supremacy view, which originated from the field of orthodox economic theory. It could generate two paradoxes: the first one is whether the value of an enterprise should be based on a single indicator or a multi-dimensional performance indicator;the second one is whether the performance-orientation should guide the manager to pursue short-term goals or long-term goals. Financial measurement of performance-orientation will increase managers’ attitudes and preferences on risk-taking avoidance and Not-Invented-Here syndrome. However, in order to achieve sustainable development, managers need to constantly innovate,learn, experiment, test new ideas, and have risk-taking capabilities. Adhering to too much "good"performance standards will create "competence traps" and an "Icarus Paradox", which is a misleading signal for continuous improvement and innovation. Therefore, the performance-orientation could inhibit creativity and learning and reduce the resilience and adaptability of enterprises, thus further increasing the probability of firm failure. Western scholars developed the methods of balanced scorecard and antifragility to resolve this paradox, but they didn’t fully address the paradox of performance orientation.Unlike extant studies, this paper proposes a new theoretical framework of "Sheng-sheng-bu-xi"orientation(or "Live long and prosper", the Vulcan salutation in the television series Star Trek) to solve the performance-oriented paradox. We like to bring back organizational goals to "Tao"—the most essential energy of Chinese seminal philosophy, the creation, constantly surging and continuous change of "Tao", that is the so-called "the great virtue of life" proposed by the Book of Changes. "Sheng-shengbu-xi" orientation emphasizes the competing intra-organizational forces of "yin" and "yang". In other words, the manager should pay attention to the opposing forces and the welfare of marginal stakeholders. In addition, we explore how the antecedent factor—All-under-heaven("Tianxia") mindset in the corporate board could influence the two mediating variables of corporate governance, the representatives of stakeholders at boards and boards’ cooperative orientation, which further affect the likelihood of adopting "Sheng-sheng-bu-xi" orientation. "Sheng-sheng-bu-xi" orientation will positively enhance the degree of open innovation and have a good balance of co-opetition among partners or rivals.Finally, we also examine how "Sheng-sheng-bu-xi", as an Eastern management concept, dialogues with some Western management concepts.This paper makes these contributions: First, unlike the performance-orientation based on the shareholder supremacy view, we propose a novel concept construct, namely "Sheng-sheng-bu-xi"orientation, based on the traditional Chinese yin-yang thinking, the Western organizational resilience theory, and the stakeholder theory. Second, this theory, with an Eastern root, could generate a good dialogue with Western strategic theories, such as organizational ambidexterity, sustainability, and dynamic capabilities. Finally, "Sheng-sheng-bu-xi" orientation has a good inheritance and innovative development for combining Western stakeholder theory and Chinese traditional "yin-yang" theory.