The Impact of Organizational Slack on The Performance of Pharmaceutical and Chemical Firms

The purpose of this paper is to attempt to reconcile previous views of the relationship between organizational slack and performance through examining the impact of organizational slack on the performance of pharmaceutical and chemical firms by using empirical analysis based on the data get from 47 firms in Henan Province. The result shows that the relationship between organizational slack and the performance of pharmaceutical and chemical firms is inverse N-shaped. The results broadly demonstrate that relationships differ based on industry circumstances and organizational slack. Additionally, this study is the first to empirically identify an inverse N-shaped relationship between slack and performance, indicating that, in certain industry circumstances, little and much slack is bad for performance. Overall, results highlight the importance of additional research into intervening factors impacting the slack–performance relationship. Index Terms: Pharmaceutical and chemical firm; organizational slack; performance; pharmaceutical and chemical industry; pharmaceutical and chemical firm management; inverse N-shaped curve; software application; empirical analysis © 2011 Published by MECS Publisher. Selection and/or peer review under responsibility of the Researc