Managerial Prosocial Preferences and Guilt as an Emotional Barrier to Exit Decisions
Management Science · 2026 · Daniel D. Keum、Xin Lucy Liu
中文摘要
尽管遭受经济挫折,管理者可能仍拒绝退出,以避免伤害那些将失去工作的员工。我们提出,亲社会偏好更强的管理者会设定更低的退出门槛,并选择能够降低被迫退出风险的保守投资,因为他们体验到更强的预期内疚感。我们的实地研究表明,在应对不断加剧的中国进口竞争时,亲社会管理者退出或剥离资产的可能性更低。我们的实验(N = 1,411),其中包括一个高管样本,表明预期内疚感中介了亲社会偏好对退出门槛与风险性投资的负向影响。当由于缺乏公共医疗保险或失业保险等社会保险项目而使员工因企业退出遭受更大伤害时,预期内疚感及其效应会更强。我们的研究为企业退出决策提供了一种情绪过程机制的解释,并凸显预期内疚感是有效决策的一种情感障碍。本文由组织领域编辑 Isabel Fernandez-Mateo 接受。补充材料:在线附录与数据文件可在 https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.02533 获取。
Abstract
Despite economic setbacks, managers may resist exiting to avoid harming employees who will lose their jobs. We propose that managers with higher prosocial preferences set lower exit thresholds and select conservative investments that reduce the risk of having to exit because they experience stronger feelings of anticipatory guilt. Our field study shows that, in responding to intensifying Chinese import competition, prosocial managers are less likely to exit or divest. Our experiments (N = 1,411), including a sample of senior executives, show that anticipatory guilt mediates the negative effect of prosocial preferences on exit thresholds and risky investments. Anticipatory guilt and its effect are stronger when employees suffer greater harm from the firm’s exit due to the absence of social insurance programs, such as public health insurance or unemployment insurance. Our study presents an emotion-processual account of firm exit decisions and highlights anticipatory guilt as an emotional barrier to efficient decision-making. This paper was accepted by Isabel Fernandez-Mateo, organizations. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.02533 .