Poverty as a Double‐Edged Sword: How CEOs’ Childhood Poverty Experience Affect Firms’ Risk Taking
研究CEO童年贫困经历对企业风险承担的影响，发现这些CEO因感知生存威胁而更愿冒险，且当前薪酬水平会调节这一关系。基于中国上市公司2003-2016年数据及实验验证。
Abstract This study explores the potential effect of chief executive officers’ (CEOs’) childhood poverty experience on firms’ risk taking. By integrating upper echelon theory and life history theory, we show that CEOs with childhood poverty experience are willing to engage in firms’ risk taking due to their perceived survival threat. We also explore a new dimension of perceived survival threat and then propose that the temporal perception of survival threat influences CEOs’ choice of firms’ risk taking. Specifically, the relationship between CEOs’ childhood poverty experience and firms’ risk taking is moderated by CEOs’ current payment as reflected in their different choices of firms’ risk‐taking behaviours. Our empirical study employs a longitudinal analysis of Chinese publicly listed firms from 2003 to 2016. We also performed a two‐stage experiment of Chinese CEOs as a supplementary study to improve internal validity.