經理人過度自信、企業生命週期與資本結構之關聯

Managerial Overconfidence, Business Life Cycle and Capital Structure

黃婉婷(Wang-Ting Huang)

指導教授 ： 王祝三

國立臺北大學/商學院/企業管理學系/碩士(2010年)

摘要

融資決策是企業重要的財務策略之一，過去文獻在探討此一議題時，皆以傳統財務管理角度，假設人為理性決策者去探討之。如Bender and Ward(2002)引入企業生命週期的觀念，認為隨著企業生命週期的發展，會使得經理人偏向使用較多的負債來做為融資來源。Heaton(2002)首先將經理人非理性層面的過度自信傾向加入考量，結果卻發現若經理人存在過度自信傾向，則會較偏愛使用負債融資。然而，在探討企業生命週期與經理人過度自信程度之關聯時，過去文獻僅以數學模型推導或只在觀念上提及兩者間的關係(如Forbes, 2004；Fairchild, 2007)，並未進行實證分析證實之。故本文首先以實證方式探討經理人的過度自信程度是否會隨著企業生命週期的演進而有所改變。

　　綜合上面文獻所述，可知隨著企業生命週期的進展，其負債比率有節節高升之現象(Bender and Ward, 2002)，Heaton(2002)也發現愈是具有過度自信傾向的經理人會偏好使用負債融資，而Fairchild(2007)更提出企業生命週期與經理人過度自信程度之間呈現正相關之論點。因此，本文進一步懷疑企業生命週期與負債比率之間之所以會呈現正相關是因為經理人的過度自信程度會隨著生命週期演進而增加，而再最後使得負債比率產生上升的趨勢。

　　實證結果顯示，經理人的過度自信程度與企業生命週期之間確實存在正向線性關係。此結果支持Fairchild(2007)的論點，認為可能是因為經理人借重公司過往的營運經驗而增強其決策的自信心所致。另一方面，本文發現經理人確實會因為公司面臨到不同的生命週期階段而直接制定不同的資本結構決策。但此外本文並同時證實，經理人的過度自信因素也會間接導致企業生命週期與負債比率之間呈現正向關係。

關鍵字

經理人過度自信 ； 企業生命週期 ； 資本結構

並列摘要

Financing decision is one of important issues in corporate finance, but most prior studies explore the issue from the view of traditional finance, which assumes rational mangers. Recently, Bender and Ward (2002) studies the effect of business life cycle on capital structure and find out that the management prefers more debt to equity as the business life cycle progresses. On the other hand, Heaton (2002) suggests that managerial overconfidence and debt financing are positively related. However, the extant literature only provides theoretical or conceptual insights on the relationship between business life cycle and managerial overconfidence (Forbes, 2004；Fairchild, 2007). This paper is the first one to empirically address this issue.

Moreover, according to the studies mentioned above, we suggest that firms will increase the debt ratio along with the life cycle stage (Bender and Ward, 2002). Heaton (2002) also finds that managers with more overconfidence would prefer debt financing. Futhermore, Fairchild (2007) suggests that the relationship between the business life cycle and managerial overconfidence is positive. Hence, this research suspects that the positive relationship between the life cycle and debt ratio is resulted from the manager's overconfidence, which increases with the life cycle stage and finally leads to the trend of the increasing debt ratio.

The empirical results show that when a firm proceeds along the life cycle stage, managerial overconfidence will increase, which confirms the view of Fairchild (2007). Further, the evidence reveals that debt financing decisions are directly related to the life cycle stage. However, we also find that managerial overconfidence simultaneously plays an indirect role to lead to the positive relationship between the business life cycle and debt ratio.

並列關鍵字

Managerial Overconfidence ； Business Life Cycle ； Capital Structure

參考文獻

林岳祥(2005)，「經理人過度樂觀程度對公司決策影響之研究」，未出版之博士論文，國立台灣大學財務金融研究所。

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