Venture Capital Experience: Secretary and Investor Confidence

Previous research primarily focuses on the financial outcomes of corporate strategic choices, but rarely discusses why they differ in strategic choices. Informal institutions, such as culture, may explain corporate strategic decisions. Based on data from Chinese listed firms from 2007 to 2022, this paper finds that corporates more influenced by merchant guild culture are more likely to implement the defenders-type strategies, which aligns with the origin logic of risk aversion in historical merchant guilds, suggesting contemporary corporate strategic choices have cultural origins. In further analysis, we examined the mechanisms of risk avoidance. Overall, this study contributes to the literature about social norm and corporate behaviors, providing new evidence for the understanding of how informal institutional affect corporate behaviors.