企業內部因素是否影響對外投資決策行為？

Do Firms’ Internal Factors Affect the Decision Behaviors of Foreign Investments?

本研究援引 Cyert and March (1963)之企業行為理論 (behavioral theory of the firm)，以績效表現落差、組織資源、競爭壓力、生存危機、與破產威脅等五個企業內部因素，探討台灣企業赴中國投資之決策行為，相較過去以外部觀點探討企業對外投資之研究不同。本研究以 1997 年至2007 年間的台灣上市櫃製造業赴中國投資公開資料進行實證分析，結果發現企業赴中國投資行為與績效表現落差呈顯著正相關、和潛在組織資源呈顯著負相關、和同業行為呈顯著正相關；當績效表現未達期望水準且面臨破產威脅時，則破產威脅程度與投資行為呈顯著正相關。實證結果顯示，赴中國投資決策行為和正、負表現落差均與預期相反，針對此現象，經進一步研究發現赴中國投資與績效有顯著正向關係，因此不能以企業行為理論之風險性行為解釋；除此之外，企業潛在資源愈多，愈能增加對中國投資行為；同業行為帶來的競爭壓力則是影響企業赴中國投資最重要的決策因素，此應和台灣企業慣用群聚效應有關。 This study, based on the behavioral theory of the firm (Cyert and March 1963), investigates Taiwanese firms’ China investment decisions with respect to five internal factors: attainment discrepancy, organization resource, survival distress, and bankruptcy threat. However, prior researches on foreign direct investment decision makings focus mostly on external rather than internal factors. By analyzing data of Taiwanese firms’ investing in China between 1997 and 2007, we find that their investing behaviors are significantly and positively related to attainment discrepancy, but negatively to potential resource. Furthermore, firms that are underperforming and facing the threat of bankruptcy have a higher tendency to launch investments in China. Empirical results show that the relationships between China investment behaviors and the positive or negative attainment discrepancy are opposite to our predictions. For verifying this phenomenon, we further examine firms’ behaviors and find that their investment intensities in China exhibit significantly positive association with performance. Therefore, it can not be explained by the risky behaviors in the behavioral theory of the firm. On the other hand, when more resources are available, firms are likely to increase their investment intensity in China, meanwhile, the peer competitive pressure is the primary factor in investment decision making. This should have been the agglomeration effect prevalent among Taiwanese firms.