Crisis and Competition in Expert Organizational Decision Making: Credit-Rating Agencies and Their Response to Turbulence in Emerging Economies
Crisis and Competition in Expert Organizational Decision Making: Credit-Rating Agencies and Their Response to Turbulence in Emerging Economies
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DOI：
10.1287/orsc.1040.0089
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发表时间：
2004-11
影响因子：
4.1
通讯作者：
Paul M. Vaaler;G. McNamara
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Paul M. Vaaler;G. McNamara
公司经常将战略决策的要素委托给外部专家，这些专家承诺进行客观的评估，这在不稳定的环境中尤其有价值。然而，专家本身可能会倾向于倾斜的决策，因为他们自己的行业环境的稳定性发生变化，因为他们在行业内的定位发生变化。我们在1987年至1998年发表的专家信用评级机构（“评级机构”）及其对新兴市场主权借款人的风险评级（“评级”）的背景下研究了这种可能性，这一时期包括行业稳定（1987-1996年）和几个新兴市场国家金融危机引发的行业动荡（1997-1998年）。在控制了与主权国家自身相关的宏观经济和相关客观风险因素后，我们发现以下几点：（1）在危机引发的行业动荡期间，机构评级是负向倾斜的，表明这些专家中存在过度的悲观情绪，这与预测专家负面反应的决策观点一致，以努力保持与主要利益相关者（在这种情况下，投资者和公共监管机构）的合法性;（2）这种负向转移对在位企业和区域集中企业来说更大，可能是因为失去了以前的信息优势;（3）在危机引发的动荡期间，这种负向转移随着这些专家之间在特定市场领域的行业竞争加剧而更大，可能表明专家之间的竞争潮流的发展。总之，我们的研究结果表明，专家组织的客观评估容易受到行业不稳定性和行业内专家定位的汇合效应的严重扭曲，特别是影响专家之间竞争的定位。具有讽刺意味的是，在不稳定的行业环境中，专家可能最有可能误导客户，因为专家需要更多的关注，应该对无私的客观性表现出更大的忠诚度。
Firms often delegate elements of strategic decisions to outside experts who promise objective assessments, which are especially valuable in unstable environments. However experts themselves may be prone to skewed decision making as the stability of their own industry environment changes and as their positioning within the industry shifts. We examine this possibility in the context of expert credit-rating agencies ("agencies") and their risk ratings of emerging-market sovereign borrowers ("ratings") published from 1987 to 1998, a period that includes both industry stability (1987-1996) and industry turbulence set off by financial crises in several emerging-market countries (1997-1998). After controlling for macroeconomic and related objective risk factors linked to the sovereigns themselves, we find several points: (1) agency ratings during crisis-induced industry turbulence are negatively skewed, indicating undue pessimism among these experts, in line with decision-making perspectives predicting negative reaction by experts in an effort to retain legitimacy with salient stakeholders, in this case, investors and public regulators; (2) this negative shift is greater for incumbent firms and regionally focused firms, possibly because of the loss of previous informational advantages; and (3) this negative shift during crisis-induced turbulence is greater as industry rivalry among these experts increases in particular market segments, possibly indicating the development of competitive bandwagons among experts. Together, our results suggest that objective assessments by expert organizations are vulnerable to substantial distortion from the confluent effects of industry instability and expert positioning within the industry, particularly positioning affecting rivalry among experts. Ironically, experts may be most likely to mislead clients in unstable industry environments when experts command greater attention and should show greater fidelity to disinterested objectivity.