Sales Force Downsizing and Firm-Idiosyncratic Risk: The Contingent Role of Investors’ Screening and Firm’s Signaling Processes
研究了销售队伍裁员规模对企业特质风险的影响，发现裁员越大风险越高，且财务不透明和竞争威胁会加剧风险，但CEO通过增加广告支出或传达战略重点可缓解。
Although sales force downsizing represents a challenging marketing resource change that can signal uncertainty about future firm performance, little is known about its impact on financial-market performance. Drawing from information economics, the authors address this knowledge gap by developing a comprehensive framework to (1) examine the impact of the size of a firm’s sales force downsizing on firm-idiosyncratic risk, (2) uncover investors’ screening processes that influence this relationship, and (3) identify firms’ mitigating signaling processes that can alleviate investor uncertainty linked to downsizing. The authors draw from several secondary sources to assemble a longitudinal data set of 314 U.S. public firms over 12 years and model their framework using a robust econometric approach. Findings show that larger sales force reductions are associated with greater firm-idiosyncratic risk. Furthermore, this increase in risk is amplified when firms face high levels of future competitive threats and lack transparency in financial reporting. However, chief executive officers can mitigate these deleterious moderating effects by signaling a commitment to growth (i.e., increasing advertising expenditures) and formally communicating an external strategic focus to Wall Street.