Abstract Drawing on the theory of corporate behavior and optimal distinctiveness theory, the panel data of A-share listed companies in China from 2010 to 2020 are used to investigate the effects of strategic differentiation on the firms’ innovation investment (aspirational risk-taking behavior) and rent-seeking expenditure (deviant risk-taking behavior). The results show that, first, the greater the deviation of strategic positioning from the industry norm, the higher the level of innovation investment and the lower the level of rent-seeking expenditure, exhibiting a tendency of “cautiously aggressive” risk-taking. Second, institutional investors’ shareholding and state ownership weaken both the positive effect of strategic differentiation on innovation investment and its negative effect on rent-seeking expenditure.
WANG Bing,CHEN Fengwen,HONG Conghua. The Effect of Strategic Differentiation on Firms’ Risk-Taking Behavior[J]. Chinese Journal of Management, 2024, 21(3): 392-.
