管理新知：单身CEO爱冒险

    这项最新研究可能会让人们看着美国企业界再次直挠头。上周，美国国家经济研究局（National Bureau of Economic Research）发布的一项工作报告认为，由单身CEO管理的公司其股票风险高于那些由已婚CEO管理的公司。

    这项研究由宾夕法尼亚大学沃顿商学院（University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School）的两位教授进行，调查了1,500家公司及其首席执行官的婚姻状况。两位教授发现，由单身CEO和已婚CEO经营的公司在公司行为上确实存在差异。单身CEO管理的公司往往会投入更多的钱在研发、收购和其他能够更快扩大业务规模的投资上，但失败的概率也更高。结果是股价的波动性更大。

    单身CEO为什么更喜欢冒险？对此，这项研究报告《管理者的婚姻状态和风险观》（Status, Marriage and Managers' Attitudes to Risk）有些语焉不详。两位合著者尼克莱•罗萨诺夫和帕维尔•萨瓦认为，它肯定与约会有关。单身者愿意承担更多风险，提高“配偶质量”。罗萨诺夫称：“即便是在CEO中间，相对地位在婚姻中似乎也很重要。”罗萨诺夫称，有可能选择单身者天性更爱冒险，但他认为这不是答案。他不认为他的统计结果受到了科技公司的影响，科技公司往往有更多的研发投入以及更年轻的CEO。他说，各个行业和地区的CEO都验证了相同的调查结果，虽然不同地区的离婚法可能增加了在一些地区提出婚姻的风险（如果有人希望保护自己的财富的话）。

    罗萨诺夫以甲骨文（Oracle）的拉里•埃里森和微软（Microsoft）的史蒂夫•鲍尔默为例。埃里森在其职业生涯中很多时候都处于单身状态（罗萨诺夫称：“他离婚又结婚，结婚又离婚，反复过好几次。”），他进行了众多大规模收购，性格好斗。而鲍尔默在其职业生涯中大多数时候都是已婚状态，外界对他的批评则是他没有把微软庞大的现金储备多花掉一点。

    总体而言，此次调查的公司中有约20%由单身CEO管理。罗萨诺夫无法说明单身女性CEO和单身男性CEO之间有无差别。因为女性CEO的样本数量不够多，缺乏统计意义。

    那么，这个调查的意义何在？首先要问问为何两位沃顿教授关心起了CEO们的约会生活或婚姻生活。罗萨诺夫称，这个问题涉及CEO对公司的影响力大小，而这一点牵涉到CEO是否薪酬过高之争。罗萨诺夫称，他的研究显示，CEO们、或者更具体的说他们的私人生活（对公司）确实有影响，影响可能还有点过大。董事会本应发挥作用，减少CEO由于正在追求一位或性感、或智慧的配偶所导致的公司冒险行为。但显然，董事会并没有做到这一点。

    译者：老榆木

    Here's another study that will make you scratch your head about corporate America. A working paper released this week by the National Bureau of Economic Research finds that the stocks of companies with chief executives who are single are riskier than the shares of companies run by CEOs who are hitched.

    The study, which was conducted by two professors at University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, looked at 1500 companies and the marital status of the companies' CEOs. The professors found a real difference in the behavior of companies run by CEOs who are single and those run by married top executives. The companies with an unmarried CEO tended to spend more money on things like R&D, acquisitions and other investments that could more rapidly increase the size of their businesses, but also had a higher chance of blowing up. The result was a more volatile stock price.

    Why are single CEOs more risk-prone? Here's where the study, which is titled Status, Marriage and Managers' Attitudes to Risk, gets a little dicey. Co-authors Nikolai Roussanov and Pavel Savor argue that it has to do with dating. Single individuals will take on more risk to increase "spouse quality." Says Roussanov, "Even among CEOs, relative position seems to matter in the marriage market." Roussanov says it is possible that people who chose to be single are just risk-takers by nature, but he doesn't think that is the answer. Nor did he think his results were skewed by the fact that technology companies tend to make more R&D investments and have younger CEOs. He said the results he found where the same across industries and the same no matter where the CEO lived, despite different divorce laws which could make marriage, if you are trying to protect your wealth, a riskier proposition.

    Roussanov pointed to Larry Ellison of Oracle (ORCL) and Steve Ballmer of Microsoft (MSFT) as examples. Ellison, who has been single many times in his career ("He's made the round trip transaction a few times," says Roussanov.), has completed a number of large acquisitions in his career and been combative with competitors, Roussanov says. Balmer, who has been married for much of his career, has been criticized for not spending more of Microsoft's large cash hoard.

    In all, about 20% of the companies they looked at had single CEOs. Roussanov couldn't say whether there was a difference in behavior between single women CEOs and single male CEOs. There wasn't enough women CEOs for the results to be statistically significant.

    So what to make of all this? One good question is why two Wharton professors are venturing into the dating, or not dating, lives of CEOs. Roussanov says the issue has to do with how much influence a CEO has on the company. That plays into the debate about whether CEOs are overpaid. Roussanov says his research suggests that CEOs, and more specifically their private lives, do matter, perhaps a little too much. Boards should be able to mitigate any corporate risk taking made solely because the CEO is trying to get a hotter or smarter spouse. Apparently they are not.