Abstract: For an enterprise, its decision-makers’ long-term orientation plays a prominent role in its withstanding environmental threats and maintaining sustainable growth. However, not all decision-makers have a long-term vision. Myopia becomes more and more common, especially during the outbreak and spread of public crises that bring challenges to the production and operation activities of an enterprise, and catch its decision-makers in the dilemma of balancing short-term benefits and long-term development. This problem arouses the question of how decision-makers should navigate myopia fluctuations to make strategic choices in sudden public crises and nurture new growth opportunities? Based on upper-echelon theory and a resource-based view, we analyze the impact of decision-makers’ myopia fluctuations and diversification strategies on enterprise investment, and the moderating effects of absorptive capacity and organizational redundancy. The results show that decision-makers’ myopia fluctuations will significantly reduce R&D investment and significantly increase advertising expenditures. The effect of fluctuations in decision-makers’ myopia on R&D investment and advertising is primarily realized through diversification strategies. When the corporate absorptive capacity is stronger, the negative impact of decision-makers’ myopia fluctuations on R&D investment is weaker, while the positive impact on advertising expenditures is stronger. When the absorbed slack resources are abundant, the positive impact of decision-makers’ myopia fluctuations on advertising expenditures is weaker. On the contrary, when the unabsorbed slack resources are abundant, the positive impact of decision-makers’ myopia fluctuations on advertising expenditures is stronger. The conclusion theoretically reveals the effect of decision-makers’ myopia fluctuations in sudden major public crises, expands the related studies of managerial myopia and diversification strategy, and provides certain theoretical guidance and practical insights for the improvement of enterprise input level.

Key words: decision-makers’ myopia fluctuations, diversification strategy, absorptive capacity, organizational redundancy, enterprise investment