Slack Resources and Firm Performance: A Meta-Analysis

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-1-2004

Department

Management and International Business

Abstract

Although organizational research posits various relationships between a firm's slack resources and performance, findings to date have been ambiguous. To provide insight into this relationship, this study employed a meta-analysis based on 80 samples from 66 studies (n = 54,249). Results provided evidence of a positive relationship among all three slack types (i.e., available, recoverable, and potential) and financial performance and showed that studies controlling for industry-relative performance demonstrated a stronger positive potential slack-performance relationship than those not including these controls. The analysis also found that studies employing lagged slack measures did not show a stronger positive slack-performance relationship than those employing current year measures for either recoverable or potential slack, a result counter to the one hypothesized. Overall, results highlight the importance of additional research into intervening factors impacting the slack-performance relationship. (C) 2002 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Publication Title

Journal of Business Research

Volume

57

Issue

6

First Page

565

Last Page

574

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