政策不确定性如何影响企业绩效——一项基于Meta分析的检验

企业发展与宏观政策环境密不可分，关于政策不确定性与企业绩效的关系仍有诸多未解之惑。根据企业绩效的具体内容将其细分为企业经营绩效、创新绩效以及投资绩效，采用Meta分析方法，揭示政策不确定性对企业绩效3个方面的不同影响，并分析二者关系的调节因素。结果发现：政策不确定性能够抑制企业经营绩效和投资绩效，但能够显著提升企业创新绩效。由于存在企业性质、企业规模、市场化程度和政治关联等调节因素差异，导致政策不确定性与企业绩效关系研究存在分歧。结论能够为政策不确定性环境下企业创新发展战略实施提供借鉴，并为地方政府官员更替、公共政策制定等提供参考。

How Does Policy Uncertainty Effect Enterprises' Performance:a Test of Meta-Analysis

As an important carrier of economic development, enterprises are sensitive to the environmental fluctuations caused by policy uncertainties. The relationship between enterprise development and macroeconomic environment is inseparable, but there are still manyquestions to be answered about the relationship between policy uncertainty and enterprises' performance. Many researchers have made empirical studies on the relationship between policy uncertainty and enterprises' performance, but there is generally a controversy whether policy uncertainty promotes or inhibits enterprises' performance? Therefore, this study focuses on solving the following three questions. First, does policy uncertainty inhibit enterprise performance or promote enterprise performance? Second, for different types of enterprise performance, does policy uncertainty have the same effect? Third, how can situational factors adjust their relationship in the process of policy uncertainty affecting enterprise performance?#br#This paper subdivides enterprises' performance into firm operating performance, innovation performance, and investment performance according to their components, and uses meta-analysis to reveal the different effects of policy uncertainty and enterprises' performance and to investigate which factors adjust the relationship. This study takes the keywords of “policy uncertainty, political uncertainty, official change, official turnover, official rotation, corporate performance, corporate innovation, R&D investment, corporate investment, policy uncertainty, political turnover, governors' turnover, innovation, corporate investment, turnover, innovation, corporate investment” etc. Through the above search path, it is found 2 183 papers related to policy uncertainty or corporate performance, but not all of them meet the data requirements of Meta-analysis. The study further combines the keywords of “policy uncertainty” and “corporate performance”, uses the “advanced search” option for the initial screening of literature, and finally obtains 38 papers that meet the requirements of the study design, 22 in Chinese and 16 in English. #br#The study finds that policy uncertainty has curbed operating performance and investment performance, but it has significantly improved the innovation performance. Specifically, the effect of policy uncertainty on the three dimensions of enterprises' performance is not consistent, with policy uncertainty inhibiting firm operating performance (ES=-0.144, p<0.001) and investment performance (ES=-0.017, p<0.001), but significantly enhancing innovation performance (ES=0.045, p<0.001). It is also found that the impact of policy uncertainty on enterprises' performance is greater for state-owned firms, large firms, firms in less marketization regions, and firms with political affiliations.#br#These findings provide evidence and reference of implementing an innovative development strategy when enterprises face policy uncertainties. Meanwhile it is of great significance to the official turnover and public policy making. First, it is suggested to improve the mechanism of interaction and exchange among local officials in different places and enhance their adaptive capacity in order to reduce policy fluctuations caused by the turnover. Second, when local governments adjust public policies, they should give careful consideration to the impact of policy uncertainties on the overall enterprises' performance and maintain policy transparency, continuity and stability. Third, local governments need to deepen the market-oriented reform of separating government and enterprises. Fourth, enterprises should enhance their sensitivity to policies and learning efforts to gain competitive advantages by improving organizational learning capacity, and corporate funds should not be crowded out by rent-seeking activities. This study does not discuss the mediating mechanism of the relationship between policy uncertainty and enterprise performance, because even though some literatures explain how policy uncertainty affects enterprise performance from the perspective of executive change and rent-seeking opportunities, it does not meet the quantity requirements of literatures used for meta-analysis. Future research needs to further open the "black box" of policy uncertainty affecting enterprise performance, for this will help the government take effective supporting measures to reduce the negative effects of policy fluctuations.#br#