Despite much research, debate continues about the impact of risk taking on a firm’s future performance. Unlike prior studies, we propose that risk-return relationships evolve as firms age and learn, particularly in high-velocity settings where accumulated knowledge affects how firms respond to technological change. Discerning this requires three things absent from prior analyses: (1) studying an entire population; (2) modeling evolutionary processes; and (3) using separate models to capture how a firm’s gains and losses (i.e., its strong and weak performances) unfold across time. Using this framework, we found that (a) risk-return relationships generally evolved from positive to negative as firms aged; because (b) firms learned to avoid large losses at younger ages than they learned to sustain large gains; yet (c) the risk taking that followed below-aspiration performance moderated those effects such that major setbacks prompted large future gains and large future losses among older firms and downward spirals among younger ones. 1 Relationships between risk and return are central to our lives. In the hope of emotional or monetary rewards, some people take risks by climbing mountains, changing employers, or switching careers. Some executives take risks in pursuit of better pay and enhanced reputations, and some firms pursue risky strategies in a quest for higher sales and profits.

Document de treball núm. 2002/8

This study examines the economic rationale for limiting firms ’ risk. We argue that risk increases the cost of doing business for two reasons. First, risk causes operating inefficiencies and imposes adjustment costs. Second, diverse stakeholders must be compensated for their risk-bearing. We find empirical support for positive risk-cost relations using various model specifications and risk measures, and across different manufacturing industries and time periods. We also examine the direct and moderating effects of bankruptcy risk.The relation of distance from bankruptcy to firms ’ costs depends on whether relations are contemporaneous or lagged and whether bankruptcy is an immediate threat or not. Key words • bankruptcy risk • contract theory • risk • risk management • stakeholder view Risk has long been recognized as a central construct in strategic management (Bowman, 1980; Bettis, 1983). Among strategic management researchers, risk generally refers to the variability or downside variability of firms ’ performances. The proxies used in empirical strategic management research (e.g. variance or standard deviation of accounting returns) reflect this understanding of risk

In the increasingly turbulent environment facing business the strategic management of the firm has become more predominate. However to date, the linkage between strategic management and financial management of the firm has largely not been explored. This research utilizes two different methods of analysis to confirm the linkage between capital structure and strategic posture of the firm. Specifically, managers were found to structure the selection of debt and capital intensity in a means consistent with the strategic goal of long-run control of systematic risk.

To date, the validity of empirical Bowman’s paradox papers that employ mean-variance approach for testing the risk/return relationship are inherently unverifiable and their results cannot be generalized. However, this problem can be overcome by developing an econometric model with two fundamental characteristics. The first one is the use of a time series model for each firm, avoiding the traditional cross-sectional analysis. The other one is to estimate a model with a single variable (the firm rate of return), but whose expectation and variance are mathematically related according to behavioral theories hypotheses, forming a heterocedastic model similar to “GARCH”. Our results agree with behavioral theories and show that these theories can also be carry out with market measures.

Earlier versions of this paper benefited from the suggestions of Hayagreeva Rao, Harry Sapienza, Freek Vermeulen, and seminar participants at the University of Michigan and

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