宗教与企业风险承担行为研究述评与展望

正式制度与非正式制度对经济发展、社会进步与企业成长有重要意义。宗教作为非正式制度的重要组成部分,在塑造和影响企业风险承担行为方面起着不可或缺的作用。文章以宗教对企业风险承担行为影响近十余年的研究成果为基础,对相关领域展开了较为全面的回顾和总结。首先,明晰了宗教的内涵及测量方法,并阐述了宗教对企业风险承担的影响机理;其次,从企业风险承担的三个维度展开,分别探讨了宗教对企业伦理风险、公司治理风险和企业财务风险的影响效应;最后,在此基础上,提出了一个较全面的未来研究框架。文章对理解宗教与企业规避潜在风险、完善治理结构以及优化风险性决策等内容具有重要意义。

A Review of Religion and Corporate Risk Taking and Prospects

Formal and informal institutional factors have great significance on social progress, economic development and firm growth. Religion is a kind of cultural phenomenon which appears as society develops to a certain historical period. In recent years, extant literature focus on the association of religion and sociology, psychology and finance. Early research mostly adopted normative methods to elaborate the significance of religion on individual behavior and organizational management practice, and also investigated the role of religion in boosting the economic development. With the deepening understanding of religion, more and more scholars come to explore the effects of religion on firm's behavior at the micro-level, given that enterprises are important components of society. In reality, acting as an important part of informal system, religion has an indispensable impact on corporate risk taking. Based on a review of related literature with the period of 2000-2016, this paper made a comprehensive summary and review of religion and corporate risk-taking, which is the fundamental of firms' growth and survival. We carry out our research as follows. Firstly, we elaborate the features of religion, summarize the empirical measurements andexpound the influencing mechanism of religion on corporate risk taking form three dimensions, including individual preference effect, corporate culture effect and institutional environment effect. Secondly, based on the above analyses, we divide corporate risk-taking into several aspects, namely business ethics risk, corporate governance risk and financial risk, and investigate the influence of religion on those aspects respectively. To be specific, religion has great impacts on corporate social responsibility, voluntary disclosures and corporate donation. In general, firms located in areas with strong religious atmosphere are more likely to exhibit less business ethic risks, for religion advocates the character of integrity and honesty that has a subtle influence on firms' ethical behaviors. What's more, religion could also reduce the potential governance risks by optimizing corporate governance structure, reducing managers' self-interest motivation and formulating reasonable compensation systems. Last but not the least, religious atmosphere also has great effects on corporate financial risks which could not be ignored, including firms' financing activities, investment activities and income distribution. The characteristics of risk aversion lead to more conservative investment decisions. Trust rooted in the religion also helps to reduce financing costs and improve financial flexibility. At the end of this paper, we put forwards a comprehensive framework for future research based on multiple dimensions. We propose moresophisticated measurements of religion, which can better reflect the connotation of religion. Also, we should balance the paradigms of normative research and empirical research, and further expand the antecedents and consequences of religion. Particularly, more efforts and attention are called to pay in the context of China, which has many unique features that distinguish from western countries. In summary, this paper sheds lights on the importance of religion in corporate decision making, and also has great implications for firms to better avoid potential risks, improve governance structure and optimize policy decisions.