以隨機漫步模型探討隨機事件對公司異質性與績效的影響

Abstract

企業的競爭優勢是近二十年來策略管理領域中學者研究探討的主要議題，有許多關於競爭優勢的理論與觀點在這段期間不斷提出，從一開始的外在環境決定論到研究的方向「由外而內」，逐漸轉移到企業資源基礎論，其重點放在企業該如何掌握本身特有的資源以及充實運用資源的能力來建立競爭優勢，產生持續的優勢績效表現。依據企業資源角度衍伸的學派還有動態能力學派、資源依賴學派等等，眾家學派說法雖然不一，但目的都是在於找出公司優異表現背後所隱含的驅動因子，也就是所謂的競爭優勢。 處理這個競爭優勢議題的當下，愈來愈多學者發現，因為外在環境與產業結構複雜，以及策略的不確定性，使得決策者在理解有限的情況下做出了決策，而決策的過程包含了太多的不確定性與隨機性所形成的「運氣」，因此即使大多數的企業績效表現可以在事後被關鍵成功因素所解釋，也無法削減掉不確定性與隨機性對於企業未來績效表現的影響，故有愈來愈多的學者投入隨機性對於企業績效表現的影響的研究。因此，本文研究重點有二，其一在於探討不同產業間，其績效表現是否有趨勢可循，或者受到外在因素不確定性與複雜性的影響較大；其二深入探討於外部環境高度不確定性與複雜性之下，是否存在能夠對企業績效表現有所影響的資源異質性。最後根據本研究實證結果發現，即使在隨機性的影響之下，透過產業間有差異的績效表現證實了異質性的存在，且資源的異質性有極大的可能具有累積的特性，證實了競爭優勢的存在，也讓後續的研究能持續在資源異質倖存在的情況下進一步的探究分析。

Competitive advantage of a firm, which is the main issue in strategic management, has been studied by scholars in the recent two decades, and many theories related to it have continuously been brought up in this period. Starting from external environment theory in the beginning, the research direction has eventually changed to resource based theory, in which its emphasis is on how firms should manage their unique resources and the ability to fully leverage resources in order to establish firms’ competitive advantage. There are many schools whose theories are based on resource based view, including dynamic capability view, resource dependency view, etc. Although there are arguments between different schools, they all have the same goal, which is to find out the driving force behind a firm’s superior performance, also known as competitive advantage. When dealing with the issues regarding competitive advantage, more and more scholars have found out that as a result of sophisticated industrial structure and strategic uncertainties, decision makers have been making strategic decisions under limited understanding of external environment. In other words, there are too many uncertainties and randomness in one’s decision making process. Therefore, even though most firms’ performances can be explained with key successful factors, ruling out the impact of uncertainties and randomness on firms’ future performances is difficult. Hence, the number of scholars starting to include randomness into the discussion of firms’ performance is increasing. The purpose of this study is to discuss if there are any differences related to competitive advantage in different industries based on firms’ performances, or if the impact caused by uncertainties and randomness is larger. Moreover, to discuss in depth that under high uncertainties and complexity of external environment, whether or not if there is a resource heterogeneity which is able to affect a firm’s performance. Finally, according to this study, we have found that under randomness, firms’ performances are still highly affected by resource heterogeneity. In addition, there is a big possibility that resource heterogeneity is cumulative, which in turn proves that competitive advantage exists. This enables follow up studies to further analyze competitive advantage under the condition that resource heterogeneity exists.