集体声誉危机与企业认证行为——基于“柠檬市场”治理机制的视角

Collective Reputation Crisis and Enterprise Certification Behavior--Research Based on the Governance Mechanism of Lemon Market

中国制造业部门时有发生的行业集体声誉危机不仅抑制了消费者对中国产品的需求,也造成了企业行为扭曲。本文从“柠檬市场”不同治理机制间的交互作用入手,构建理论模型考察了行业集体声誉危机对被牵连企业认证行为的影响机理,并以中国乳制品行业为样本,运用双重差分法进行实证检验。研究发现,集体声誉危机通过破坏市场声誉机制提高了企业的认证激励,原本没有必要申请认证的高质企业比低质企业更愿意在危机后加大认证申请。此外,集体声誉危机还引发了企业非理性的过度认证,在穷尽强相关认证后,企业的认证激励并未减弱反而转向申请其他弱相关认证。额外增加的认证成本抵消了认证对销售收入增长的促进作用,导致“过度认证陷阱”,不利于企业质量提升和危机行业的转型升级。上述结论从企业认证行为扭曲这一视角拓展了有关集体声誉危机负面效应的认识,对政府避免危机发生以及完善认证行业发展有着积极的指导意义。

The collective reputation crisis in Chinese manufacturing industry not only reduces demand,but also distorts firm’s behavior.Focusing on the interplay between reputation and certification,which are the two“lemon market”governance mechanisms,this paper constructed a theoretical model to investigate the influence of crisis on certification behavior and used DID for the empirical test with the data of dairy industry.The study found that the crisis has increased the certification incentives by destroying the market reputation mechanism.High-quality firms that did not need to apply for certification were more willing to apply than low-quality firms.Besides,the crisis has triggered the certification competition.After exhausting the relevant certifications,firms turn to other weakly relevant certifications.Furthermore,the increase in certification cost offsets the increase in sales revenue,and leads firms to an“over-certification trap”,which has no benefit to the improvement of product quality and transformation for the crisis industry.The above conclusions expand the understanding of the negative effects of the collective reputation crisis,and provide insight for the government to avoid the crisis.