The Relationship Among Organizational Slack,Diversification Strategy And Enterprise Performance:An Empirical Study On The Transition Economy

After years of development,China has built a competitive and integrated manufacturing system,and became the manufacturing power all over the world.At the same time,many structural problems arised,one of them is the excess production capacity.This phenomenon reflects the problem of organizational slack and its configuration.Organizational slack refers to the storage resources which are beyond practical need,including redundant personnel,unused funds and unnecessary expenses,etc.On the one hand,along with the pace of reform and opening up,foreign capital is pouring into the market constantly.Chinese enterprises face more and more pressure of market competition,so that they have to configurate organizational slack eflfectively.On the other hand,the less developed financial markets lead firms cannot sell and disposal redundant assets effectively.Thus,the configuration of organizational slack becomes a major issue,concerning the survival of enterprises and the industrial structure adjustment on economic transformation.Current researches focus on the relationship of organizational slack and performance,which carry from a variety of theoretical perspectives and achieve diverse conclusions,including positive correlation,negative correlation,U-shaped,inverted U-shaped,transpose S-shaped and so on.However,the research on the mechanism and contingency factors in the relationship of organizational slack and performance is insufficient,generally ignores the role of diversification strategy,which is an important way of allocating slack resources.Given the popularity of diversification strategy since 1990s and the problem of organizational slack,the thesis basing the resource-based theory and agency theory,investigates the relationship between organizational slack,diversification strategy and enterprise performance,in order to reveal the relationship between different types of organizational slack and enterprise performance in the background of transformation economic,make up the research insufficient of relationship between different types of organizational slack and diversification strategy,reveal the mechanism of organizational slack impacting on performance from the perspective of configuration by diversification strategy.The thesis builds the relationship between organizational slack and performance,and the moderating effect and mediating effect of diversification strategy.Based on data from the 467 manufacturing listed companies,using STATA statistical analysis software for data correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis,the thesis draws conclusions that:(1)Available slack,recoverable slack and potential slack,all have positive impact on performance.In addition,available slack and potential slack may also have inverted U-shaped relationship with firm performance.(2)Available slack and potential slack have positive impacts on diversification strategy,recoverable slack have a negative impact on diversification strategy.In addition,available slack may also have U-shaped relationship with diversification strategy.(3)Diversification strategy does not have a significant impact on performance.(4)Diversification strategy does not play the mediating role in the relationship between organizational slack and performance.(5)Diversification strategy has a negative moderating effect on the relationship between available slack and performance,it also has a negative moderating effect on the relationship between potential slack and performance,but no moderating effect on the relationship between recoverable slack and performance.This research has certain theoretical contribution:Expands and deepens the researches on the relationship of organizational slack and performance in transformation economic background;Makes up the existing researches on the relationship of organizational slack and diversification strategy by the time design and theoretical basis;Test the effectiveness of diversification strategy as a way of configurating organizational slack,identifies the moderating effect of diversification strategy in the relationship of organizational slack and enterprise performance.The thesis's conclusion also has practical significance for enterprise management on the transformation economy.Enterprise managers should have an objective cognition about different types of organizational slack,try to deploy and use organizational slack according to their different characteristics,remain vigilant to the strategy of diversifying,and keep the compatibility of external environment,internal strategy and organizational slack.Through this way,a firm may use organizational slack effectively and cope with environmental changes well,thus create and maintain the sustainable competitive advantage.