Total Risk and Its Impact on Firm Performance and Sustained Growth: Empirical Evidence from Consumer Non-Cyclicals Manufacturing Companies on the Indonesia Stock Exchange

Abstract

This study investigates the effect of total risk on firm performance and sustained growth among consumer non-cyclicals manufacturing companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) over the period 2019–2023. Total risk is operationalized through the systematic risk proxy (Beta/β), estimated via the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) framework as the covariance between individual stock returns and the market return divided by the variance of market returns, using the Jakarta Composite Index (JCI) as the market benchmark. Firm performance is measured through Return on Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE), and Tobin’s Q, while sustained growth is operationalized following Gerson et al. (2025) as SG = b × ROE, where b denotes the earnings retention ratio. Panel data regression analysis is applied to 225 firm-year observations drawn from 45 companies, with model selection guided by the Chow and Hausman specification tests. The Fixed Effect Model (FEM) is adopted for ROA, ROE, and SG, while the Random Effect Model (REM) is applied for Tobin’s Q. Results indicate that systematic risk exerts a significant negative effect on ROA (β = −0.312; p < 0.01) and ROE (β = −0.278; p < 0.01), but is statistically non-significant for Tobin’s Q, suggesting that capital market pricing in Indonesia does not fully incorporate systematic risk information. Critically, systematic risk exerts the largest and most significant negative effect on sustained growth (β = −0.347; p < 0.01), revealing a dual transmission mechanism through which risk suppresses ROE while simultaneously inducing more conservative dividend policies, both of which constrain long-run growth sustainability. These findings carry important implications for corporate risk management strategy and empirically enrich the literature on risk, performance, and growth in emerging capital markets.