Question

高分翻译~

Firms that fail to meet financial market expectations
eventually face a loss of support from
investors. To continue attracting investors and capital
resources, managers must identify strategic
actions that either recombine existing resources
or acquire new resources that can be subsequently
combined with existing resources to produce
results that exceed expectations, or at least
meet them (Makadok, 2001). We also know from
research based on the behavioral theory of the firm
and the related prospect theory that firms meeting
or exceeding investors’ expectations tend to be
risk averse because they frame the decision based
on avoiding losses (March and Shapira, 1987).
However, those firms experiencing declining performance
frame the decisions as seeking gains
(regaining lost performance) and thus are willing to
take risky actions to reverse declining performance
(Kahneman and Tversky, 1979; Fiegenbaum and
Thomas, 1988).
Anecdotal evidence suggests that investors and
boards of directors have not been patient with
CEOs whose firms are unable to meet investors’
performance expectations (Colvin, 2005; Smith
and Hearn, 2005). Thus, executives of firms in
decline situations may feel pressure to turn around
performance quickly. As a result, some of them
may take actions without sufficient analysis and
evaluation. These actions are less likely to be valuable
or difficult-to-imitate by competitors and thus
have a low probability of improving firm performance.
Approximately 60 percent of the firms in
our sample took at least one strategic action in the
year following declining market performance, suggesting
that managers in declining firms are indeed
motivated to take action. The much smaller number
of strategic actions that were both valuable
and difficult-to-imitate, however, demonstrates the
difficulty (and indeed rarity) of designing and
implementing actions that are well received by the
market.
Our results suggest that for firms to reverse
declining market-based performance, their actions
to recombine existing resources or to acquire
new resources must be valuable and difficult-toimitate.
Undertaking the same type of actions
that are not valuable or difficult-to-imitate does
not lead to recovery but instead can further
erode performance. Our results show that actions
involving either the general introduction of
new products or the formation of strategic
alliances that were judged not to be valuable
and inimitable had no effect on performance
measured by investors’ expectations. However,
pursuing acquisitions regardless of their value and
imitability had a negative effect on performance
measured by investors’ expectations. In other
words, these actions are more likely to harm rather
than help the firm’s efforts to improve marketbased
performance.

Answer 1

好长啊！！！

未能达到金融市场对其预期的厂商将失去投资者的支持。为了继续吸引投资者及资金，经理人必须采取战略性行动，对现有资源进行整合，或者获取新的资源并将其与现有资源有机结合起来，以创造超过市场期望，至少是达到市场期望的结果(Makadok, 2001)。

从厂商行为理论和其他相关理论，我们还可以知道，达到或超过市场期望的厂商多为风险规避型，因为他们制订决策的依据就是避免损失(March and Shapira, 1987)。

然而，那些表现下滑的厂商以获取盈利（弥补以前的损失）作为制订决策的基础，所以他们愿意采取有风险的行动来扭转颓势(Kahneman and Tversky, 1979; Fiegenbaum and Thomas, 1988)。

大家都说投资者和董事会对不能使企业的表现满足投资者期望的CEO们没有什么耐性(Colvin, 2005; Smith and Hearn, 2005)。因此，在企业运转不良的情况下，管理者要面对尽快扭转不利局面的压力。其结果是，很多管理者在未经过充分分析和审慎评估的情况下就贸然采取行动。这些行动往往没有太大的价值或者很容易被竞争者模仿，从而不太可能提升企业的表现。

在我们收集的例子当中，大概有六成的企业在其市场表现不利的下一年度就采取了至少一项战略性的行动。这表明，在表现不良的企业里，其管理者确实有很强的采取行动的动机。只有极少数的战略性行动是既有价值又很难被竞争者所模仿的，这说明设计和执行能够真正很好地被市场所接受的行动是很难的（事实上几乎没有）。

我们的结果表明，想要扭转市场不利局面的厂商，其整合现有资源或者获取新资源并将其与现有资源有机结合的行动，必须是有价值而且是很难为其竞争者所模仿的。采取没有什么太大价值或者容易被他人模仿的行动，并不能使企业的表现好转，反而有可能恶化企业的表现。我们的结果表明，在投资者看来，那些被认为无价值的、易于被模仿的、和推出新产品以及组织战略联盟相关的企业行动，对改善企业经营状况并没有什么帮助。但是，在投资者看来，无视价值和被模仿性而单纯地去追求兼并，对企业有着负面的影响。换而言之，这些行动更容易损害而不是提升企业的市场表现。