Qualitative Review of Stories Told: Anecdotes of CFO – CEO Relationships

Theodore Brown Sr

doi:10.14738/abr.11.6031

Abstract

The basis of this qualitative examination was incited by the notion that the perceptions of Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Local Conference leadership substantially effects how the relationships of Chief Financial Officers (CFOs/Treasurers) and Chief Executive Officers (CEOs/Presidents) are viewed and function as members of their conference leadership team . In the past, Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) and Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) have historically functioned in their own professional executive compartments within their organizations rather than partnering together as cooperative teammates. The 21 st Century’s, however, has forever changed how CFOs and CEOs relate to each other in the workplace due to the inception of governmental regulations called the Sarbanes-Oxley Act which was passed to address major corruption in large USA businesses and organizations, major non-compliance in accounting practices, extensive financial reporting fraud, institutional mis-management, board governance, CFO and CEO accountability. The impact of Sarbanes-Oxley has also influenced the relational practices of CFOs and CEOs in Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) conferences. A Mixed-Methods sequential exploratory research design was used with primary data for this study purposefully selected, collected and analyzed (coding, patterns, trends and themes) from qualitative focus group interviews with four local conference CFOs and CEOs, N=8, located in the United Stated of America (USA). Discussion and Conclusion are explored and disclosed, and the Implications of CFO and CEO relationship on organizational effectiveness, efficiency, and climate are presented.

Highlights

In prior decades, Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) and Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) have functioned in their own professional executive compartments within their organizations rather than partnering together as cooperative teammates (Berry, 2015)
LITERATURE Understanding Organizational Effectiveness and Efficiency Organizational effectiveness and efficiency primarily depends upon an executive‘s leadership style inclusive of transformational and visionary leadership (Taylor, Cornelius and Colvin, 2014; Walter, 2014) along with the institution’s human resource department and areas of employee commitment, loyalty, performance, satisfaction, technological adeptness and trust (Sadeh, 2017; Ullah, and Yasmin, 2013; Shiri, 2012)
A crucial responsibility of the CEO, as the leader of the organization (Ode, 2016) and CFO is to foster and facilitate a good and healthy working relationship with each other (Baker, 2016; Grove, 2016; Caruso, 2015). They must serve and work together as partners providing support, leadership and encouragement to one another and the leadership team, and to all employees to ensure that the organization is fulfilling its mission and achieving its performance and productivity goals (Schiff, 2016)

Summary

Introduction

Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) and Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) have functioned in their own professional executive compartments within their organizations rather than partnering together as cooperative teammates (Berry, 2015). According to Grove (2016), organizational health, effectiveness, vitality (Inkinen, 2016; Apenko and Chernobaeva, 2016; Verma and Dhar, 2016) and efficiency (Al-Amin, Makarem and Rosko, 2016; Horne, 2016; Epure and Lupu, 2012) has been directly linked to the positive working relationship between the CEO and CFO in the organization, whereas, Moulton (2016) characterized it in terms of the entities’ financial well-being, and Caruso (2015) as good financial leadership.

Results

Conclusion