大者恆大嗎？規模與擴張傾向間關係的檢視

Is Big Really Always Getting Bigger? Investigation on the Relationship Between Size and Expansion Propensity

大者恆大是一項廣被提及的議題，然而對此議題的系統性的研究卻少有學者探討。此研究以台灣證券商為對象，探討證券商規模與證券商相對擴張傾向之間的關係，結果發現產業內存在某個規模門檻，小於此一規模門檻時，規模較大的廠商其相對擴張傾向較大，呈現大者會不斷擴大其與尾隨者規模差距的情形；但超過此一規模門檻後，規模較大的業者的相對擴張傾向會降低，使得其與規模緊跟尾隨其後的證券商的規模差距縮小，儘管規模較大的證券商其絕對規模依然在不斷擴大當中。不過整體而言，規模小的一群證券商要擴張成為規模領先的證券商，仍是相當困難。本研究的貢獻在於以精緻的方式說明大者恆大的產業圖像。

Is big really always getting bigger? Do small firms have chances to catch up with formerly larger firms? The relationship between firm size and expansion propensity are widely explored by various theories and perspectives, yet the research results remain diverse and inconclusive (Haveman, 1993). While different theories hold different positions in predicting the relationship, the study tries to synthesize various theories and propose an inverted U-shaped relationship: larger firms have higher propensity to expand, but as firms become larger to a certain degree, the expansion propensity would decrease if firms continue to grow. Regarding the inverted U-shaped relationship between firm size and expansion propensity, the left side, upward part, of the curve forms as a result of slack resources, market power, scale economies, and organizational learning associated with largeness. Slack resources indeed favor expansions, but to expand may require firms own a certain amount of resources. That is, when firms’ slack resources exceed a certain threshold, an increase in resources would have little impact on expansion propensity. Since firm size is positively associated with slack resources (March, 1981), for firms larger than a certain scale, the positive relationship between firm size and expansion propensity may disappear. The market power viewpoint suggests that large scale enhances bargaining power with task environments, but most markets are heterogeneous. In markets still exist some fragmented, peripheral niches for which small-scaled specialists are suited (Carroll, 1985). It is hard for large firms leveraging their bargaining in common markets to invade those niches. It denotes the limit of large firms’ expansion. As firms’ size reach the limit the more, additional expansions would become harder and harder. Hence from the market power viewpoint, firms’ ability to initiate further expansion would face stronger obstacles when their sizes grow to a certain degree. The organizational learning perspective suggests large firms’ rich experiences in expanding. Meanwhile, when firms’ sizes reach to a certain degree, formalized role and control system would be emphasized so that they would become more rigid (Quinn & Cameron, 1983) and dampen learning abilities. Hannan and Freeman (1984), in a discussion on relationships between size and inertia, pointed out that there exists a threshold beyond which organizations would become inert. The result is a decrease in expansion propensities for firms larger than a certain degree. In addition, scale economies would also diminish as firms grow to a certain size. All of these indicate the existence of a size threshold beyond which a positive relationship between firm size and expansion propensity would no longer hold. Yet as firms continue to grow, bureaucratization and bounded managerial capability effects formulate and shape the right side, downward part, of the curve. Bureaucratization and bounded managerial capability indicate a negative relationship between size and expansion propensity, but this study argues the negative relationship occurs only beyond a size threshold. Some traditional models suggest that bureaucratization matters only when firms are extremely large. For example, the organizational life cycle model (Greiner, 1972) asserts that crisis may occur after the organization sequentially experiences the entrepreneurial, collectivity, delegation, and formalization stages. At that time, the organization is very large. Bounded managerial capability works when organizational affairs are too complicated for managers to handle. According to some studies on diversification (e.g. Hitt, Hoskission, & Ireland, 1994; Geringer, Tallman, & Olsen, 2000), over-expansion leads to information overload, coordination costs, and internal governance costs that will finally exceed benefits derived from diversification (Geringer, Beamish, and daCosta, 1989) and deteriorate performance. Deteriorated performance derived from over-expansion in turns brings internal restructuring (Hoskisson, Hitt & Hill, 1991) that detracts managers’ attentions from outward actions to internal affair arrangements. Therefore, larger firms may have lower expansion propensity because of their bureaucratization and bounded managerial capability. This study examines comprehensive panel data depicting actual expansion behavior of firms from Taiwan’s securities industry. The securities industry provides a good setting for examination, since Taiwan’s securities firms are constrained to working in limited business areas. Thus business or product diversification does not interfere with the hypothesized relationships investigated in the study. Our data were of a pooled time series and cross-sectional structure. The unit of analysis is firm-year. Controlling for industry growth, founding scale, state-owned status, foreign-owned status, group affiliation, and firms age, empirical analysis supports the inverted U-shaped relationship between firm size and expansion propensity. The relationship between firm size and expansion propensity is positive when firms are smaller than a threshold. However, the relationship turns negative when firms are larger than the threshold. The study contributes to the research strand by (1) examining comprehensive panel data depicting actual expansion behavior of firms from a single industry; (2) recognizing and synthesizing different validity domains of theories and perspectives discussed in the literature; and (3) proposing and confirming the inverted U-shaped relationship between firm size and expansion propensity. While larger firms have greater expansion potential due to factors including slack resources, market power, organizational learning and scale economies, their expansion potential is restricted due to factors including bureaucracy, bounded managerial capability, and managerial diseconomies. Consequently, a curvilinear relationship forms. The findings also provide an important strategic implication that, through aggressive expansions, small firms do have chances to grow and catch up with formerly large firms. This study has two limitations. First, this study is conducted in a single industry context. This single-industry study precludes inter-industry effects, but the generality is also restricted. Second, since expansion actions in this study are defined as establishing subsidiaries in different geographic areas, other types of expansion such as introducing new products, entering new industries, and enlarging capacities of existent factories are ignored. Especially for expansions along the product dimension, some studies point out that the complicated interaction effects between geographic and product diversification need further investigations.