牵一发而动全身:供应网络位置、经营风险与公司绩效

A Slight Move in One Part May Affect the Situation as a Whole: Supply Network Location, Operational Risk and Corporate Performance

公司的经营状况与财务决策深受其嵌入的社会网络的影响,而公司所处的供应网络正是企业间网络关系的一个重要组成部分。本文采取社会网络分析方法,基于2013—2016年中国制造业上市公司前五名供应商和客户信息,构建包含关系嵌入和结构嵌入的供应网络,利用网络中心性和结构洞刻画公司的供应网络位置特征,对供应网络中结构嵌入影响公司绩效的效应和机理进行分析与检验。与现有研究普遍认同的观点不一致,本文发现,公司所处的优势网络位置不但没有为公司带来网络收益,反而突出地表现为公司所处的网络中心性越高、占据的结构洞越丰富,公司绩效越差。为了解释这一负面影响产生的内在机理,本文进一步检验了经营风险在网络位置与公司绩效的关系中所起的中介效应。研究发现,处于供应网络中心、占据丰富结构洞的公司承担的经营风险反而更大,进而对公司绩效产生负向影响。本文的结论为中国制造业企业从供应网络层面提升公司绩效提供了理论支持和经验证据。

The company’s operation and financial decision-making are deeply influenced by its embedded social network, and the supply network of the company is an important part of the network relationship among enterprises. Based on the information of the top five suppliers and customers of each listed company, this paper constructs large sample supply networks including relational embeddedness and structural embeddedness for the first time by using social network method. The location characteristics of the company’s supply network are depicted by network centrality and structural hole, and the effect and mechanism of the structural embeddedness in supply network on the corporate performance are analyzed and tested. Unlike the existing studies, which generally agree that the advantage of network location will bring corresponding benefits to the company, this paper finds that the advantage of supply network location not only does not bring network benefits to the company, but also highlights that the higher the network centrality, the richer the structure hole, and the worse the company performance. In order to explain the internal mechanism of the negative impact, this paper further reveals the mediating effect of business risk on the relationship between network position and corporate performance. The research finds that companies occupying supply network center and rich structural holes, bear greater operational risks, and thus have a negative impact on corporate performance. The conclusions will provide theoretical support and empirical evidence for Chinese manufacturing enterprises to improve corporate performance from the supply network level.