Does CEO gender matter for bank risk?

This paper addresses the relation between CEO gender and bank risk. We exploit a unique dataset of 365 Polish cooperative banks, 42% of which are run by female CEOs. We find that banks headed by female CEOs are less risky: they report higher capital adequacy and equity to assets ratios. Credit risk in female-led banks is not different from male-led banks, and therefore higher capital adequacy does not stem from lower asset quality and is likely to be linked to higher risk aversion of female CEOs. Our evidence supports the view that women are more risk averse bank CEOs than men. Our findings suggest that gender quotas in bank boards can contribute to reduce risk-taking behavior.     

When Do Outsider CEOs Generate Strategic Change? The Enabling Role of Corporate Stability

When academic researchers, business commentators, and boards of directors have debated the merits of hiring new CEOs from outside the firm, the implicit or explicit assumption typically made is that outsider CEOs will provide an advantage in achieving strategic change. In this study, we challenge this assumption by employing a duality perspective on stability/change, and we provide an original conceptual framework to posit that it is the presence of corporate stability (ordinary succession, a long‐tenured predecessor CEO, and good firm performance) that allows outsider CEOs to generate a greater degree of post‐succession strategic change. We use extensive longitudinal data from US airline and chemical industries between 1972 and 2010 to test our hypotheses, and we discuss how our supportive findings challenge long‐standing assumptions regarding the outsider succession–strategic change relationship, and we advocate embracing the non‐intiutive notion that stable (unstable) conditions can be enablers (barriers) of strategic change for outsider CEOs.     

The use of variance decomposition in the investigation of CEO effects: How large must the CEO effect be to rule out chance?

Variance decomposition analysis is often used to examine the degree to which CEOs influence their companies' performance (the so‐called CEO effect). Such studies play an important role in a body of literature that investigates the effect of leadership on organizations. In this paper, I argue that these previous studies have an important underlying flaw. Empirically, these studies wrongly attribute the performance effect of randomness—of chance—to the CEO. I demonstrate how randomness can affect the measured effects in a variance decomposition analysis, and I show that this is especially problematic for the measurement of CEO effects. I demonstrate how this results in a greatly inflated CEO effect and develop an approach to correct for it. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

核心高管特征与公司成长性关系研究——基于中国沪深两市上市公司数据的经验研究

本文以我国沪深两市2004—2006年的上市公司为样本,从核心高级管理人员的人力资本特征视角,对高管特征与上市公司成长性的关系进行了经验检验。本文发现,在其他条件不变的情况下,上市公司成长性与核心高管的平均年龄、平均任职时间显著相关,而与核心高管平均学历的相关性不显著。进一步的研究还表明,在国有控股公司和非国有控股公司中,核心高管特征与公司成长性的关系具有显著差异。本文的研究有助于深化认知人力资本特征在公司发展过程中的重要地位,对强化核心高管遴选、完善人力资源管理具有积极的借鉴意义。     

Do CEO's early-life marketization experiences affect the innovation behavior of SMEs?

We investigate the relationship between chief executive officers’ (CEOs) early-life exposure to marketization transition and the research and development (R&D) intensity of Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We find that there is a significant positive relationship between the early-life transition experiences of CEOs and the R&D intensity of SMEs. CEOs who have experienced higher stages of marketization transition are significantly more likely to engage in proactive innovation activities. The means of the potential R&D intensity distributions are increasing in the treatment level, although this increasing trend is not always significant. Overall, the results confirm the view that experiencing a transition in early-life significantly facilitates CEOs’ engagement in innovation activities.     

Pilot CEOs and corporate innovation

We find evidence that chief executive officers’ (CEOs’) hobby of flying airplanes is associated with significantly better innovation outcomes, measured by patents and citations, greater innovation effectiveness, and more diverse and original patents. We rule out alternative explanations, leading us to conclude that CEO pilot credentials capture the personality trait of sensation seeking. Sensation seeking combines risk taking with a desire to pursue novel experiences and has been associated with creativity. Our evidence highlights sensation seeking as a valuable personality trait that can be used to identify CEOs who are likely to drive innovation success.