We introduce a new explanation for one of the most pronounced phenomena on the American business landscape in recent decades: a dramatic increase in attributions of CEO significance. Specifically, we test the possibility that America's CEOs became seen as increasingly significant because they were, in fact, increasingly significant. Employing variance partitioning methodologies on data spanning 60 years and more than 18,000 firm-years, we find that the proportion of variance in performance explained by individual CEOs, or “the CEO effect,” increased substantially over the decades of study. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of this finding. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd."> We introduce a new explanation for one of the most pronounced phenomena on the American business landscape in recent decades: a dramatic increase in attributions of CEO significance. Specifically, we test the possibility that America's CEOs became seen as increasingly significant because they were, in fact, increasingly significant. Employing variance partitioning methodologies on data spanning 60 years and more than 18,000 firm-years, we find that the proportion of variance in performance explained by individual CEOs, or “the CEO effect,” increased substantially over the decades of study. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of this finding. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd."> We introduce a new explanation for one of the most pronounced phenomena on the American business landscape in recent decades: a dramatic inc">
[go: up one dir, main page]

IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/stratm/v36y2015i6p821-830.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Has the “CEO effect” increased in recent decades? A new explanation for the great rise in America's attention to corporate leaders

Author

Listed:
  • Timothy J. Quigley
  • Donald C. Hambrick
Abstract
type="main" xml:id="smj2258-abs-0001"> We introduce a new explanation for one of the most pronounced phenomena on the American business landscape in recent decades: a dramatic increase in attributions of CEO significance. Specifically, we test the possibility that America's CEOs became seen as increasingly significant because they were, in fact, increasingly significant. Employing variance partitioning methodologies on data spanning 60 years and more than 18,000 firm-years, we find that the proportion of variance in performance explained by individual CEOs, or “the CEO effect,” increased substantially over the decades of study. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of this finding. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Timothy J. Quigley & Donald C. Hambrick, 2015. "Has the “CEO effect” increased in recent decades? A new explanation for the great rise in America's attention to corporate leaders," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(6), pages 821-830, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:stratm:v:36:y:2015:i:6:p:821-830
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/smj.2258
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carola Frydman & Raven E. Saks, 2010. "Executive Compensation: A New View from a Long-Term Perspective, 1936--2005," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(5), pages 2099-2138.
    2. Richard A. Bettis & Michael A. Hitt, 1995. "The new competitive landscape," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(S1), pages 7-19.
    3. John McGee & Howard Thomas, 1986. "Strategic groups: Theory, research and taxonomy," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(2), pages 141-160, March.
    4. Theresa S. Cho & Donald C. Hambrick, 2006. "Attention as the Mediator Between Top Management Team Characteristics and Strategic Change: The Case of Airline Deregulation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(4), pages 453-469, August.
    5. Craig Crossland & Donald C. Hambrick, 2007. "How national systems differ in their constraints on corporate executives: a study of CEO effects in three countries," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(8), pages 767-789, August.
    6. Carola Frydman & Dirk Jenter, 2010. "CEO Compensation," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 75-102, December.
    7. Edward H. Bowman & Constance E. Helfat, 2001. "Does corporate strategy matter?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 1-23, January.
    8. Kevin J. Murphy & Ján Zábojník, 2004. "CEO Pay and Appointments: A Market-Based Explanation for Recent Trends," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 192-196, May.
    9. Alison Mackey, 2008. "The effect of CEOs on firm performance," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(12), pages 1357-1367, December.
    10. Steven N. Kaplan & Bernadette A. Minton, 2012. "How Has CEO Turnover Changed?," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 12(1), pages 57-87, March.
    11. Paul J. Irvine & Jeffrey Pontiff, 2009. "Idiosyncratic Return Volatility, Cash Flows, and Product Market Competition," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(3), pages 1149-1177, March.
    12. Rakesh Khurana, 2007. "Introduction to From Higher Aims to Hired Hands The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession," Introductory Chapters, in: From Higher Aims to Hired Hands The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession, Princeton University Press.
    13. Robert R. Wiggins & Timothy W. Ruefli, 2005. "Schumpeter's ghost: Is hypercompetition making the best of times shorter?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(10), pages 887-911, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pierre Chaigneau & Nicolas Sahuguet, 2014. "Explaining the Association between Monitoring and Controversial CEO Pay Practices: an Optimal Contracting Perspective," Cahiers de recherche 1406, CIRPEE.
    2. Markus A. Fitza, 2014. "The use of variance decomposition in the investigation of CEO effects: How large must the CEO effect be to rule out chance?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(12), pages 1839-1852, December.
    3. Aivazian, Varouj A. & Lai, Tat-kei & Rahaman, Mohammad M., 2013. "The market for CEOs: An empirical analysis," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 24-54.
    4. Timothy J. Quigley & Scott D. Graffin, 2017. "Reaffirming the CEO effect is significant and much larger than chance: A comment on Fitza (2014)," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(3), pages 793-801, March.
    5. Tobias Keller & Martin Glaum & Andreas Bausch & Thorsten Bunz, 2023. "The “CEO in context” technique revisited: A replication and extension of Hambrick and Quigley (2014)," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(4), pages 1111-1138, April.
    6. Frydman, Carola & Molloy, Raven S., 2011. "Does tax policy affect executive compensation? Evidence from postwar tax reforms," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(11), pages 1425-1437.
    7. Carola Frydman, 2019. "Rising Through the Ranks: The Evolution of the Market for Corporate Executives, 1936–2003," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(11), pages 4951-4979, November.
    8. Chaigneau, Pierre & Sahuguet, Nicolas, 2013. "The effect of monitoring on CEO pay practices in a matching equilibrium," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 55405, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. Martijn Cremers & Yaniv Grinstein, 2009. "The Market for CEO Talent: Implications for CEO Compensation," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2385, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Sep 2009.
    10. Pierre Chaigneau & Nicolas Sahuguet, "undated". "The structure of CEO pay: pay-for-luck and stock-options," FMG Discussion Papers dp713, Financial Markets Group.
    11. Gounopoulos, Dimitrios & Pham, Hang, 2018. "Specialist CEOs and IPO survival," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 217-243.
    12. Michel Magnan & Dominic Martin, 2019. "Executive Compensation and Employee Remuneration: The Flexible Principles of Justice in Pay," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 160(1), pages 89-105, November.
    13. Shue, Kelly & Townsend, Richard R., 2017. "Growth through rigidity: An explanation for the rise in CEO pay," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(1), pages 1-21.
    14. Timothy J. Quigley & Craig Crossland & Robert J. Campbell, 2017. "Shareholder perceptions of the changing impact of CEOs: Market reactions to unexpected CEO deaths, 1950–2009," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(4), pages 939-949, April.
    15. Brockman, Paul & Lee, Hye Seung (Grace) & Salas, Jesus M., 2016. "Determinants of CEO compensation: Generalist–specialist versus insider–outsider attributes," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 53-77.
    16. Kelly Shue & Richard Townsend, 2016. "Growth through Rigidity: An Explanation for the Rise in CEO Pay," NBER Working Papers 21975, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Antonio Falato & Dan Li & Todd Milbourn, 2015. "Which Skills Matter in the Market for CEOs? Evidence from Pay for CEO Credentials," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(12), pages 2845-2869, December.
    18. Steven N. Kaplan, 2013. "CEO Pay and Corporate Governance in the U.S.: Perceptions, Facts, and Challenges," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 25(2), pages 8-25, June.
    19. Philipp Meyer‐Doyle & Sunkee Lee & Constance E. Helfat, 2019. "Disentangling the microfoundations of acquisition behavior and performance," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(11), pages 1733-1756, November.
    20. Zacharias, Nicolas A. & Six, Bjoern & Schiereck, Dirk & Stock, Ruth Maria, 2015. "CEO influences on firms' strategic actions: A comparison of CEO-, firm-, and industry-level effects," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(11), pages 2338-2346.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:stratm:v:36:y:2015:i:6:p:821-830. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/0143-2095 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.