高管的贫困经历能帮助企业突破经营困境吗?——基于经济周期波动的视角

Can Executives'Poverty Experience Help Firm to Break Through Business Difficulties?

本文基于外部风险的视角,考察高管的贫困经历能否帮助企业突破经济周期波动冲击下的经营困境。结论显示,高管的贫困经历能够有效扭转经济紧缩对企业经营绩效和生产效率带来的负面影响。进一步研究发现,高管的贫困经历通过降低企业裁量成本、增强企业凝聚力带领企业抵御经济下行压力。具体地,就企业裁量成本而言,贫困经历使高管加大了企业在经济紧缩期削减管理费用和销售费用的力度;降薪往往是企业抵御宏观经济下行压力的惯常手段,这无疑有损员工的安全感和价值感,降低企业凝聚力。本文发现,贫困经历使高管控制了企业在经济紧缩期的员工降薪力度,以稳定“军心”。上述研究结果在考虑内生性影响后依然稳健。研究表明,出身于贫困环境的高管能够凭借强大的逆境商和“把钱花在刀刃上”的支出理念,带领企业抵御外部风险、突破经营困境。

Based on the perspective of external risks,this paper examines whether executives'poverty experience can lead firm to break through business difficulties caused by economic cycle fluctuations.The results show that executives'poverty experience effectively reverse the negative impact of economic contraction on operating performance and productivity.Further analysis finds that executives'poverty experience can lead firm to resist economic downturns by reducing the discretionary cost and enhancing corporate cohesion.Specifically,first,from the perspective of discretionary cost,the poverty experience makes executives increase their efforts to cut management expenses and selling expenses during the economic contraction.Second,wage cuts are a common tool for firm to resist macroeconomic downturns,which undoubtedly undermines employees'sense of security and value,thereby reducing corporate cohesion.This paper finds that,in order to stabilize the"military heart",poverty experience makes executives control the intensity of wage cuts for employees in the period of economic contraction.The results are robust after considering the endogenous problems.The findings indicate that executives with poverty experience can lead firm to resist external risks and break through business difficulties by virtue of strong adversity quotient and the expenditure concept of"spending money on the blade".