Regional Dialect Diversity and Corporate Strategic Aggressiveness

As an important role of the regional culture, dialects have a significant influence on the corporate strategy. Diversity of dialects appears to move firms towards strategic radicalization by weakening the "hometown effect", enhancing innovation awareness, and increasing the diversification of business. Using A-share listed companies from 2006 to 2018 as sample, based on information from the annual financial statements, this paper argues that higher dialect diversity in the city where enterprise is located leads the corporate strategy to be more aggressive; and the mismatch between strategy and dialectal environment will have a negative effect on corporate performance. After a series of robustness tests and using instrumental variables to solve endogenous problems, the conclusions remain consistent. Further study indicates that the influence of dialect diversity on strategy is enhanced as managers' awareness of the dialectal environment increases, but is weaken if the enterprise is a state-owned enterprise or has larger scale. This research reveals the connection between dialect culture and corporate behavior form a strategic level, provides empirical evidence and enriches the literature for the traditional view of "culture influences strategy", and has significance on promoting the corporate strategic management practices.

Strategic Culture and Environmental Dimensions as Determinants of Anomie in Publicly-Traded and Privately-Held Firms

ABSTRACT:Anomie is a condition in which normative guidelines for governing conduct are absent. Using survey data from a sample of U.S. manufacturing firms, we explore the impact of internal (cultural) and external (environmental) determinants of organizational anomie. We suggest that four internal organizational factors can generate or suppress organizational anomie, including strategic aggressiveness, long-term orientation, competitor orientation, and strategic flexibility. Similarly, we argue that external contextual factors, including competitive intensity and technological turbulence, can influence organizational anomie. We extend anomie and ethics research by considering the impact of these firm cultural and environmental factors according to whether firms are publicly-traded or privately-held. Findings demonstrate that a number of firm cultural and environmental factors can generate or reduce anomie in firms. Moreover, strategic aggressiveness, long-term orientation, and strategic flexibility influence organizational anomie differently depending on whether the firm is publicly-traded or privately-held. Theoretical and practical implications of our findings are discussed.