Short-Selling Pressure and Workplace Safety: Curbing Short-Termism Through Stakeholder Interdependencies
研究发现卖空压力会导致企业工伤增加，但利益相关者的重要性会调节这种短视反应，对理解企业长期价值创造有启示。
We advance a multistakeholder framework that highlights the influence of stakeholders in tempering short-termist responses to capital market pressures. When firms face pressure from short sellers in the capital market, they sometimes shift attention to short-term stock performance and neglect critical investments that pay off in the long run. Relying on a quasi-natural experiment and establishment-level data on workplace injuries, we find that short-selling pressure causes an increase in employee injuries. Critically, however, the degree to which the response is short-termist depends on the salience of multiple stakeholders (analysts, shareholders, employees, and managers). We discuss the implications for understanding firms’ relations with their stakeholders and, particularly, how these stakeholders influence corporate responses to capital market pressures in ways that matter for long-term value creation. This study also contributes to strategy research by highlighting the downside of capital market deregulation. Funding: Rengong Zhang acknowledges the financial support from the CityU Strategic Research Grant. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2022.1576 .