Abstract: Managers play a key role in financial decision-making of enterprises, and to a certain extent, can transform their personal preferences into corporate behavior. This paper, using a sample of A-share listed companies from 2015 to 2021, explores the intermediary pathways and governance mechanism through which managerial risk preferences on the formation of financial distress in enterprises. The results show that higher managerial risk preference increases the likelihood of financial distress, mainly through the intermediary effect of debt expansion and leverage manipulation. These findings remain robust after controlling for endogeneity and conducting robustness tests. The heterogeneity analysis shows that in non-state-owned enterprises, enterprises with low capacity utilization, those in poor financing environments, and those operating in highly uncertain environments, managerial risk preference has a more pronounced positive effect on financial distress. Further research indicates that both salary incentive and equity incentive in the incentive mechanism as well as internal controls in the constraint mechanism can effectively mitigate   financial distress caused by managerial risk preference. However, the effect of external audits in reducing financial distress is not significant, suggesting that the governance effect of homogenized external audit is limited. The research conclusion helps to clarify the generation mechanism of enterprise financial distress from the perspective of managerial risk preference, and has a positive reference value for alleviating agency conflict and resolving enterprise financial distress.

Key words: managerial risk reference, debt expansion, leverage manipulation, financial distress, incentive constraint

摘要： 管理者对企业财务决策起着主导作用，一定程度上会将其个人意志转化为企业行为。以2015~2021年A股上市公司为研究样本，探究管理者风险偏好对企业财务困境形成的中介路径及治理机制。研究结果显示：管理者风险偏好越大，越容易引发企业财务困境，主要通过债务扩张与杠杆操纵的中介效应形成传导路径，这一结论经过内生性与稳健性检验依然成立。异质性检验显示，在非国有企业、产能利用率较低企业、处于融资环境较差企业以及处于环境不确定性较强企业中，管理者风险偏好对企业财务困境的正向影响更显著。进一步研究发现：激励机制中的薪酬激励与股权激励、约束机制中的内部控制可以发挥有效治理效应，抑制管理者风险偏好引致的企业财务困境；而约束机制中的外部审计抑制作用并不显著，表明同质化的外部审计治理效应有限。研究结论有助于从管理者风险偏好视角厘清企业财务困境的生成机理，对缓解第一类代理冲突、化解企业财务困境有着积极的参考价值。

关键词: 管理者风险偏好, 债务扩张, 杠杆操纵, 财务困境, 激励约束