Abstract: Recession reflects the continuous deterioration of performance indicators of different dimensions such as profitability and solvency of enterprises, and is the concentrated manifestation of enterprises' difficulty in adapting to the market environment. At present, scholars have made great achievements in the study of declining enterprises, but no consensus has been reached on the relationship between the characteristics of declining enterprises and the strategic change. In the complex and volatile capital market environment, the continuous decline of business performance will undoubtedly put listed companies in a situation of internal and external difficulties, and even lead to bankruptcy. The strategic change refers to the change behavior of an enterprise actively changing internal resource allocation to adapt to the external environment. Therefore, “change” seems to be an effective way for the declining enterprises in the “prison” to get out of the predicament. However, in reality, the existing phenomenon that “changing is seeking death, and not changing is waiting for death” makes enterprises back away from the strategic change.
In this context, taking declining enterprises among China's A-share listed companies as samples, this paper analyzes the decision-making logic of the strategic change in declining enterprises from the perspective of the top management team's stability, and examines the practical significance of the strategic change. The results of the study are as follows: (1) For declining enterprises, the top management team's stability has a significant inhibiting effect on the strategic change, which shows that when the top management team is stable, there will be greater organizational inertia, which makes it easy for the declining enterprises to fall into the “success trap” and is not conducive to the implementation of the strategic change. (2) The strategic change can help the declining enterprises to achieve a turnaround, but attention should also be paid to the choice of the timing and the mode of change. Reasonable strategic change is a positive reflection of declining enterprises reintegrateing the existing resources to adapt to the volatile external environment, and can help them focus their existing resources on the expansion of core businesses to get rid of the existing difficulties, so as to achieve “nirvana”. However, declining enterprises should also make strategic adjustments as soon as possible to avoid “accumulated difficulties”.(3) The executive compensation incentive and the executive ownership ratio weaken the negative correlation between the top management team's stability and the strategic change. In other words, both the executive compensation incentive and the shareholding ratio will enhance the convergence of interests between executives and the company, and the top management team is more likely to take strategic changes for the long-term development of the company.
The theoretical contributions of this paper are as follows: For one thing, by verifying the internal relationship between the top management team's stability and the strategic change, it not only reveals the influence mechanism of the top management team's stability in the corporate governance and the strategic decision-making, but also further enriches the theoretical research on the antecedents of the strategic change. For another, based on the different timing and types of strategic change, this research investigates the differences in the effect of the strategic change, which lays a theoretical foundation for the subsequent research to fully understand the complexity of the strategic change. At the same time, to help declining enterprises to improve their management and to achieve better performance, this paper puts forward the following suggestions: Firstly, the top management team should maintain certain dynamics to shape good organizational vitality in practice, improve the company's internal and external supervision mechanism and executive team appraisal system, so that top managers will be promoted to make long-term strategic choices. Secondly, listed companies should not only improve the resource allocation and integration ability of top managers, but also improve their risk awareness level, so that when the company's performance continues to decline, they can make strategic change decisions timely and effectively. Finally, listed companies should actively establish executive compensation and equity incentive mechanisms to enhance the convergence of interests between top managers and the company and stimulate the enthusiasm of top managers to make scientific strategic decisions and promote the healthy development of enterprises.

Key words: Declining Enterprises, Top Management Team, Strategic Change, Performance Turnaround, Corporate Governance

摘要： 本文以中国A股上市公司中的衰退企业为样本,探究高管团队稳定性对战略变革的影响以及战略变革的现实意义,得到如下结论:高管团队稳定性与衰退企业战略变革存在显著的负向相关关系;战略变革有利于帮助衰退企业实现成功逆转,但也应注意变革时机和变革方式的选择,以免“雪上加霜”;高管薪酬激励与高管持股比例弱化了高管团队稳定性对衰退企业战略变革的负向影响。以上研究结果揭示了高管团队稳定性在公司治理与战略决策中的作用机理,为处于衰退期的上市公司如何通过合理的战略变革以实现业绩逆转提供了有益启示。

关键词: 衰退企业, 高管团队, 战略变革, 业绩逆转, 公司治理