居安思危:绩优企业的战略变革——CEO认知特征的调节作用

Being Vigilant in Peace Time:Positive Performance Feedback and Corporate Strategic Change:The Moderating Role of CEO’s Cognitive Characteristics

当绩效超出预期时,企业选择守成还是进取?现有研究结论存在分歧。基于前景理论和高层梯队理论,论述了业绩期望顺差通过规避效应和赌资效应,影响CEO对于风险与收益的感知,进而影响企业战略变革的作用机制。进一步地,讨论了两种重要的个人认知特征在CEO解读和响应绩效反馈信息中的作用。采用双向固定效应模型对2007—2018年中国A股上市公司的9701个样本进行回归分析后发现:业绩期望顺差与企业战略变革呈正相关关系。CEO过度自信削弱了业绩期望顺差与企业战略变革之间的正相关关系。CEO的开放性增强了业绩期望顺差与企业战略变革之间的正相关关系。此外,业绩期望顺差所引致的战略变革与后续绩效呈正相关关系,说明绩优企业的战略变革有助于巩固和发挥竞争优势。进一步研究发现:业绩期望顺差与企业战略变革的关系以及CEO认知特征的调节作用仅在非国有企业中成立。根据研究结论,从设置绩效目标、培养和选聘CEO、增强企业灵敏度三个角度提出了促进绩优企业把握变革机遇、实现长期发展的实践建议。

Strategic change is one of the core issues in the field of strategic management.It reflects the efforts made by the management to keep the adaptability of the enterprise to the environment.A large number of literatures have explored the antecedents of strategic change,among which the negative performance feedback is considered as one of the important factors to trigger strategic change.However,few studies have examined the relationship between positive performance feedback and strategic change.And the conclusions of the existing studies are different.To ease the contradiction of the existing research,the study is suggested to re-sort out the mechanism and boundary conditions of the relationship between positive performance feedback and enterprise strategic change.According to the Upper Echelons Theory,CEO’s interpretation of performance feedback information largely determines the response behavior of the enterprise.Based on the Prospect Theory,scholars found that there are two psychological processes in individual decision-making:Loss Aversion Effect and House Money Effect.These two psychological processes affect the CEO’s perception of risks and benefits,influence their interpretation of performance feedback information,and finally influence the risk decision of enterprises.Studying how the positive performance feedback affects the strategic change decision of enterprises through Loss Aversion Effect and House Money Effect is helpful to reconcile the debate on"the positive performance feedback enterprise changes or not"in the existing research.In addition,CEO’s cognitive characteristics play a profound role in the process of information interpretation.However,how the two cognitive characteristics,overconfidence and openness affect the CEO’s interpretation of performance feedback information,and thus affect the implementation of strategic changes in response to performance feedback,there is still a lack of research to answer this question.Because the corporate ownership is one of the prominent enterprise characteristics in China,it is necessary to further analyze the impact of the corporate ownership when examining the relationship between positive performance feedback and corporate strategic change and the moderating effect of CEO’s cognitive characteristics.Based on the Prospect Theory and the Upper Echelons Theory,this research discusses the mechanism by which the positive performance feedback affects the CEO’s perception of risks and benefits through the Loss Aversion Effect and the House Money Effect,and then affects the corporate strategic change.Furthermore,the roles of two important personal cognitive characteristics,namely CEO overconfidence and CEO openness,in interpreting and responding to performance feedback information are discussed.This research takes 9,701 samples from 2,209 A-share listed companies in China from2007 to 2018 as the research object,and uses the methods of correlation analysis and regression analysis to test the hypothesis by using Stata 15.1 software.The results are as follows.There is a positive relationship between positive performance feedback and corporate strategic change.The overconfidence of CEO weakens the positive relationship between positive performance feedback and corporate strategic change.The openness of the CEO enhances the positive relationship between the positive performance feedback and corporate strategic change.That is to say,among positive performance feedback enterprises,non-overconfident CEOs or open CEOs are more likely to implement strategic changes.In addition,there is a positive relationship between the strategic change caused by the positive performance feedback and the subsequent performance,which indicates that the strategic change of the high-performing enterprises is helpful to consolidate and exert the competitive advantage.Further research shows that the relationship between positive performance feedback and corporate strategic change and the moderating effect of CEO’s cognitive characteristics are only established in non-state-owned enterprises.