Does Slack Buffer? Market Performance after Environmental Shock

Slack is a resource held by a firm but exceeds its needs. It is crucial for a firm to raise more attention on slack when facing environmental shocks, which are one of the causes of unsustainability. Based on agency theory and behavioral theory, this paper analyzes the buffer effect of slack on market performance under different periods and degrees of environmental shocks. Taking two major earthquakes that occurred in China as the natural experimental background and the listed firms in hit areas as the sample, we find that environmental shock is exposed to acts as a positive contingency for the impact of unabsorbed slack on market performance, and as a negative contingency for absorbed slack’s effect. The severity of environmental shock promotes the unabsorbed slack to act as a buffer in the immediate post-shock period and absorbed slack in the during-shock period. These findings contribute to answering the question of how to configure slack to protect firms and even achieve sustainable development when facing environmental shock.