“创新”抑或“关系”？儒家文化视角下社会资本与企业战略研究

在经济社会转型期复杂的外部环境下，中国民营企业如何在激烈的市场竞争中调整战略、获取竞争优势并谋求长期发展？基于儒家文化视角考察了社会资本对民营企业战略导向的影响。以中国私营企业为研究样本，发现社会资本降低了企业的资源约束，但也“绑架”企业持续进行关系投入，促进了民营企业的创新战略和关系战略。儒家文化则规制了这种作用，在一定程度增强了企业的创新战略并削弱了关系战略。进一步研究发现，竞争激烈的环境更容易激发企业的战略变革，但外来文化冲击导致的文化冲突削弱了儒家文化的影响。机制检验发现，社会资本通过缓解融资约束，从而支持了民营企业的战略投入。以上结果经过工具变量回归及一系列稳健性检验后依然成立。上述发现拓展了非正式制度下企业行为的研究，为解释中国情境下民营企业的战略行为提供了经验证据。

Social Capital and Strategic Orientation of Private Enterprises: the Perspective of Chinese Traditional Culture

Under the complex external environment of the economic and social transition period, how can Chinese private enterprises adjust their business strategies, seek long-term development, and created world-renowned economic achievements in the face of fierce market competition? Based on the perspective of traditional Chinese culture, this paper examines the influence of social capital on the strategic orientation of private enterprises. This study uses the 7 rounds of Chinese Private Enterprise Survey (CPES) as the research sample. We find that social capital eases the resource constraints of enterprises, but also forces enterprises to continue to invest in relationships, and at the same time promotes innovation strategies and relationships strategy of private enterprises. Traditional Chinese culture regulates this role, promoting companies'' innovation strategies and weakening relational strategies. Further research finds that a highly competitive environment is more likely to stimulate corporate strategic change, but the cultural conflict caused by foreign culture shock weakens the influence of traditional culture. The mechanism test found that social capital supported the strategic investment of private enterprises by easing financing constraints. Then we find that relational strategic investment improves the short-term performance of firms, but there is an inverted U-shaped nonlinear relationship. The above results still hold after instrumental variable regression and a series of robustness tests. The above findings extend research on firm behavior in informal institutions and provide empirical evidence for explaining the strategic behavior of private firms in the Chinese context.