Recent scholarship expresses concerns that U.S. corporations are too focused on short-term performance, undermining their long-term competitiveness. The authors examine how short-term strategies and performance, or short-termism, results from the dissolution of the American corporate elite network. They argue that the corporate board interlock network traditionally served as a collective resource that helped corporate elites to preserve their autonomy and control, mitigating short-termism. In recent years, changing board-appointment practices have fractured the board network, undermining its usefulness as a platform for collective action and exposing corporate leaders to short-term pressures. The authors develop and apply a cohesion metric for network managerialism, derived from theory and evidence in social-network scholarship. Using three indicators that capture short-termism earnings management and shareholder returns, the authors identify a structural basis for short-termism that links network-based resources to managers’ decisions. The results highlight the benefits of the corporate elite network and illustrate unforeseen consequences of the network’s dissolution.

中文翻译：

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地平线上的眼睛？支离破碎的精英与美国企业的短期焦点

最近的奖学金表达了对美国公司过于关注短期业绩，削弱其长期竞争力的担忧。作者研究了美国企业精英网络的解体如何导致短期战略和绩效，或短期主义。他们认为，公司董事会互锁网络传统上是一种集体资源，可以帮助企业精英保持自主权和控制权，减轻短期主义。近年来，不断变化的董事会任命做法破坏了董事会网络，削弱了其作为集体行动平台的作用，并使企业领导人面临短期压力。作者开发并应用了网络管理主义的凝聚力度量，该度量源自社交网络学术的理论和证据。作者使用三个捕捉短期主义盈余管理和股东回报的指标，确定了将基于网络的资源与经理决策联系起来的短期主义的结构基础。结果突出了企业精英网络的好处，并说明了网络解散的不可预见的后果。