邹院学术交流会 | 沈鹏：探索汽车生产商在瑕疵产品检测以及召回过中的学习机制

Business press and public safety advocates often accuse product manufacturers of taking too long to investigate a potential product defect and initiate a recall, should the defect be confirmed. These stakeholders have demanded that the relevant regulator open its parallel investigation of the defect. Such demands assume that the regulator’s parallel investigation can influence the manufacturer, expediting the manufacturer’s recall (i.e., an "influenced recall") completion. Our research uses a sample of 2100 recalls initiated in the U.S. and provides empirical evidence against this assumption, that is, the regulatory defect investigation will delay the firm’s recall process.

Furthermore, we investigate the detailed mechanisms of this delaying effect. To do so, we first collect the textual narratives of 1,442 defect investigation reports by 20 vehicle manufacturers during 2011–2018. We provide a novel measure of the manufacturer’s knowledge gained during the defect investigation. We show that the manufacturer gains more knowledge when the regulatory influence during the investigation is low, and this more knowledge gained in the investigation accelerates the manufacturer's repair of the recalled vehicles.