Risk-Antecedents of Firms and Strategic Mediators – New Evidence from a Cross-Country Analysis

Abstract

We examine the strength and nature of firm aspiration and expectation as strategic mediators in the association of risk antecedents and firm risk, after exploring the possible impact of such antecedents on firm aspiration, and firm aspiration’s preliminary influence on firm risk. Empirical literature is mostly silent about risk antecedents of firms in an emerging market or cross-country context, and to the best of our knowledge, the mediators proposed in this study are yet to be explored. We report strong significant positive mediating effects of firm aspiration and expectation in association of risk antecedents and firm risk. Our results also validate that all studied risk antecedents, except corporate governance- composition, significantly influence aspiration and expectation mediators and firm risk in line with our hypotheses. Our results also hold true after controlling for firm-level and country-level heterogeneities and conducting two additional robustness tests.