Abstract:

With the increase of global environmental dynamism and complexity, the corporate strategic change has become an important issue in both academic and business communities. As for the factors influencing the corporate strategic change, the existing studies focus more on the internal factors, with only a few analyzing the influence of the external factors from the perspectives of the media, the institution and analysts. Customers are firms' indispensable external stakeholders. In China, relation-based transaction is quite common with customer concentration as its characterization. Prior researches mainly explored the firm-level consequences of the customer concentration from the perspectives of operating risks, financial decisions and capital market behaviors. As for the effect of the customer concentration on the corporate strategic change, there is no related analysis yet.
Based on the contingency theory and the firm behavior theory, this study explores the relationship between the customer concentration and the corporate strategic change with the data of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2004 to 2017. The empirical results show that the more firms depend on a few major customers, the more likely they are to adjust current ways of resource allocation. When the environment is more dynamic, the positive effect of the customer concentration on the corporate strategic change is more significant. Compared with state-owned enterprises, the relationship is more pronounced in non-state-owned enterprises. Further analyses show that while the effect is not significant for firms in the growth stage, it is significant for those in the decline stage. Moreover, compared with the eastern and the central regions, the positive influence is most prominent in firms in the western region.
The above findings disclose the fact that in China, high customer concentration has been taken as potential risks by the management, and the strategic change has been regarded as an effective reaction to mitigate those risks. The underlying logic is in accord with the existing literature. To some extent, it reflects that it is common for Chinese companies to have the sense of crisis. With the increase of external risks and uncertainty, they tend to adjust their ways of resource allocation as reaction. However, the intensity of firms' sense of crisis varies with differences in industries and firm characteristics as well as changes in time and location,
This research provides important implications for both the management and the supervision authorities. As far as managers are concerned, they should recognize the potential risks or losses resulting from high customer concentration, and keep them under control through adjusting corporate strategies. Especially for firms in the growth stage, located in the eastern region and in industries with weak environmental dynamism as well as state-owned firms, managers should pay more attention to those risks or losses, and adopt strategic changes to avoid the worsening situations. As for the supervisors, they should strengthen supervision over the above-mentioned firms, urge them to disclose information about risks or losses resulting from high customer concentration, so as to better protect investors' rights.

Key words: Customer Concentration, Corporate Strategic Change, Environmental Dynamism, Ownership Structure, Life Cycles

摘要：

通过分析客户集中度对企业战略变革的影响,为企业战略变革文献引入一个新的前因变量,并引入环境动态性和产权性质作为调节变量,构建理论框架。以2004~2017年A股上市公司为样本进行实证检验,结果表明:企业对少数主要客户的依赖程度越强,其对现有资源配置方式的调整幅度越大;环境动态性越强时,客户集中度对企业战略变革的正向影响越显著;与国有企业相比,这种关系在非国有企业中更加显著。进一步研究表明,在成长期,客户集中度对企业战略变革的影响不显著,但在衰退期,这种影响却显著为正。此外,与东部和中部地区相比,上述影响在西部地区的企业中更为显著。

关键词: 客户集中度, 企业战略变革, 环境动态性, 产权性质, 企业生命周期