高管团队职能异质性与企业绩效关系研究:基于管理者认知和团队冲突的中介分析

高管团队的职能特征如何反映到企业绩效中一直是管理领域研究的重点,但是其实证检验结果呈现出复杂化的特征,一致性的结论尚未达成。本文从高阶梯理论和信息处理理论出发,较为全面地探索高管团队职能异质性如何影响企业绩效。研究结果表明:(1)高管团队职能异质性对企业绩效水平有负向的影响;(2)高管团队职能异质性会显著促进管理者认知集中性和复杂性的提高;(3)管理者认知集中性和复杂性的提高会进一步促进绩效水平的提高;(4)管理者认知是高管团队职能异质性影响企业绩效水平的中介机制;(5)高管团队职能异质性的提高会显著促进团队冲突的提高;(6)团队冲突的增强会抑制企业绩效水平的提高;(7)团队冲突是职能异质性影响企业绩效水平的中介机制。

The impact of TMT functional heterogeneity on corporate performance:The mediating effect of managerial cognition and group conflict

The Upper Echelon Theory triggers a large number of researches to focus on the relationship between the characters of the top management team(TMT)and corporate performance,among which top management team functional heterogeneity is one of the most explored variables compared with tenure heterogeneity,educational heterogeneity and so on.However,the relationship between functional heterogeneity and corporate performance is rather conflicting.On the one hand,from the perspective of information processing theory,some scholars believe functional heterogeneity plays an important role in improving the corporate performance because TMT with a high functional heterogeneity can be more sensitive to changes in the business environment as functional heterogeneity provides the whole team multiple views of perceiving the information based on their different functions,so that TMT is able to make more flexible and rapid strategies in response to business environmental change.On the other hand,from the perspective of group conflict,some scholars hold the view that functional heterogeneity can damage corporate performance.This is because TMT with a high functional heterogeneity cannot easily and quickly decide how to respond to business environmental change as team members are more likely to deal with the information based on their functions.The above two perspectives trying to find out the relationship between functional heterogeneity and corporate performance,are substantially studied and empirically supported by many scholars and their papers.This inconsistent result motivates more scholars to further explore the relationship between functional heterogeneity and corporate performance.As a result,this study examines many moderating variables,including CEO power,environmental uncertainty,and other context variables,and obtains valuable conclusions.This exploration towards moderating variables is beneficial and advocated by Hambrick,the founder of Upper Echelon Theory,as he suggested scholars should consider the impact of context variables on the relationship between functional heterogeneity and corporate performance.Also,he also recommends the black box of the relationship between functional heterogeneity and corporate performance should be further studied,and some psychological variables are worth considering.Based on the fact that fewer studies focus on the mediating variable among the relationship between functional heterogeneity and corporate performance,this paper aims to fill in this research gap and explore how functional heterogeneity affects corporate performance through a certain mechanism.Using the data from 25 companies in the equipment manufacturing industry during the period from 2012 to 2015,this paper examines the impact of functional heterogeneity on corporate performance while considering the mediating effect of managerial cognition and group conflict individually and collectively.This paper adopts Generalized Linear Regression(GLS)to test the relationship between functional heterogeneity and corporate performance to eliminate the noise of heteroscedasticity and cross-section correlation.Most data come from the annual report of listed corporates and some academic databases,including CSMAR and WIND.By conducting an empirical examination,we find that:Firstly,TMT functional heterogeneity has a negative effect on corporate performance,which means with the continuous increase in functional heterogeneity,corporate performance will gradually diminish.Besides,the drawbacks(group conflict)brought by functional heterogeneity outweighs its benefits(sensitivity to information).This result is probably incurred by Chinese national cultures,such as collectivism and high-power distance.Secondly,functional heterogeneity has a positive effect on both cognitive focus and cognitive complexity,which means functional heterogeneity is a source of multiple views of information processing.In other words,the increase in functional heterogeneity can make TMT more sensitive to change in business so that they will have a more flexible strategic change.Thirdly,functional heterogeneity has a positive effect on group conflict,which means as more and more people with multiple functional backgrounds come in management team,it will be more difficult to reach an agreement because team members disagree with each other so the whole company cannot effectively respond to the change in business environment,thereby causing a decrease in corporate performance.Finally,both managerial cognition and group conflict play a mediating effect in the relationship between functional heterogeneity and corporate performance,which means functional heterogeneity will have an impact on managerial cognition and group conflict,thereby leading to the change in corporate performance.Our finding suggests that TMT functional heterogeneity has a negative effect on corporate performance in the context of Chinese society.On the one hand,managerial cognition plays a mediating role in this relationship,which is favorable for the increase in corporate performance.On the other hand,group conflict also plays a mediating role in this relationship,which is adverse to the increase in corporate performance.In the end,the negative effect caused by group conflict outweighs the positive caused by managerial cognition,contributing to a negative relation between TMT functional heterogeneity and corporate performance.