A Behavioral Theory of Firm Growth: Sequential Attention to Size and Performance Goals
基于企业行为理论，提出管理者通过社会比较形成规模期望水平，并顺序关注绩效与规模目标。来自保险业的证据表明，当企业规模低于期望且绩效目标已满足时，增长更快。
According to the behavioral theory of the firm, managers pay sequential attention to goals and apply aspiration levels to each goal. Although many goals have been proposed for organizations, research has so far concentrated on profitability. Here it is proposed that managers form an aspiration level for size through social comparison. This proposal leads to predictions on how performance and size goals jointly affect growth. Supporting this sequential attention hypothesis, evidence from the general insurance industry shows that firms grow more when they are below the aspiration level for size, especially when performance goals are satisfied.