An Abstract: When and How do Chief Marketing Officers Drive Firm Performance? CMO Characteristics, Managerial Marketing Capability, and Firm Value Creation

Abstract

The chief marketing officer (CMO) is the highest-level representative of marketing in a firm, giving marketing a voice in the top management team and critically shaping the firm’s marketing strategy. However, the business press has questioned the contribution of CMOs to firm performance, also by pointing to the short tenure of executives working in that position. Indeed, some research studies find no impact of CMOs on sales growth and shareholder value. However, other studies do find an effect, with the mixed nature of the findings indicating that CMOs do not automatically add to firm value, but rather some do while others do not. The value of having a CMO in the top management team is not the only controversy, but more fundamentally, mixed empirical evidence has also left a question mark over the economic value of spending on marketing per se.