Study on the Influence of Customer Volatility on the Financial Performance of Manufacturing Enterprises

Xian Zhang; Hong Liu

doi:10.6981/FEM.202501_6(1).0024

Authors

Xian Zhang
Hong Liu

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6981/FEM.202501_6(1).0024

Keywords:

Customer Volatility; Agency Costs; Commercial Credit; Financial Performance.

Abstract

Customers are the main source of corporate interests and have an important impact on the operation and development of enterprises. This paper takes the dynamic dimension of customer relationship as the entry point, based on stakeholder theory, signaling theory and resource dependence theory, and takes Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share manufacturing enterprises from 2014-2023 as the research object, and draws on the existing research to construct the mediation effect model to deeply analyze the impact of customer volatility on financial performance. The results show that customer volatility has a significant negative impact on the financial performance of manufacturing firms, and conclusions still hold after the robustness test; further analysis reveals that customer volatility inhibits the improvement of firms' financial performance by raising agency costs and increasing commercial credit. The findings of the study shed light on how companies manage customer relationships.

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