The Impacts Of Resource Efficiency On Corporate Performance Under Different Environmental Characteristics

Enterprise’s resource efficiency not only reflects the efficiency of resource utilization,and also reflects the allocation efficiency among different resources. Keeping rational levelsof resource efficiency manifest the balance in some aspects such as cost control, risk aversion,which have significance to enterprise’s operation benefits and operation stability. Concerningthe relationship between resource efficiency and corporate performance, existing theoreticalanalysis and empirical results have obvious differences. Moreover, extant research papershave not discussed the effectiveness of resource efficiency from the perspective ofperformance variability. At the same time, as the carrier for enterprise’s survival anddevelopment, environment must have impacts on the relationship between resource efficiencyand corporate performance. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct some exploration about therelationship between resource efficiency and corporate performance under differentenvironmental characteristics.Firstly, this paper reviews and summarizes the extant studies about resource efficiency,and puts forward research focus. Then combining with theories and basis in enterprisemanagement and some related fields, this paper presents the probable impacts that resourceefficiency on enterprise performance and performance variability. At the same time,considering the impacts of environmental dynamism, environmental munificence andenvironmental complexity, the paper also discusses changes of the relationship betweenresource efficiency and corporate performance. Finally, selecting A-share listed companies inmanufacturing industry as research objective and carrying on the empirical analysis.The empirical results show that the relationship between resource efficiency andcorporate performance is inverted U shape, but not simply linear relationship such as positivecorrelation or negative correlation. When firms are in more dynamic environments, theirinventory, production and human resource efficiency present more strongly positive impactson corporate performance. While, if resource efficiency is above a certain level, the negativeimpacts of production, human and marketing resource efficiency on corporate performancebecome weaker. When firms are in more munificent environments, their inventory, productionand marketing resource efficiency also present more strongly positive impacts on corporateperformance. While, if resource efficiency is above a certain level, the negative impacts ofinventory, human and marketing resource efficiency on corporate performance becomeweaker. When firms are in more complex environments, their inventory, production andhuman resource efficiency present more strongly positive impacts on corporate performance.And, if resource efficiency is above a certain level, the negative impacts of inventory, production, human and marketing resource efficiency on corporate performance are stillstronger. Taking performance variability as a research dimension to discuss the effects ofresource efficiency, results show that inventory and human resource efficiency have positiveimpacts on performance variability, while production and marketing resource efficiency havenegative impacts on performance variability. Meanwhile, when firms in more dynamicenvironments or more munificent environment, the relationship between resource efficiencyand performance variability become weaker, while the relationship become stronger in morecomplex environment.