General Managerial Skills Research Articles

CEO origin and general managerial skills: A research on firms listed on Borsa Istanbul

CEO origin and general managerial skills: A research on firms listed on Borsa Istanbul

The dark side effects of CEO general managerial skills on corporate overinvestment

The dark side effects of CEO general managerial skills on corporate overinvestment

Do generalist CEOs engage in more tax avoidance than specialist CEOs?

Existing research suggests that generalist CEOs, who possess managerial skills that are transferrable across firms and industries, are more able to bear downside risk than specialist CEOs with non-transferrable managerial expertise. In this paper, we examine whether generalist CEOs are better positioned to engage in risky tax avoidance strategies than specialist CEOs. Our empirical results support this prediction and show that firms with generalist CEOs tend to engage in more tax avoidance than those with specialist CEOs. Our identification strategy includes an instrumental variable method and a difference-in-differences test using CEO turnover as a quasi-natural experiment to correct for endogeneities. A battery of robustness checks and cross-sectional tests strengthens our findings. Taken together, our findings imply that general managerial skills of CEOs matter more for tax planning than do specific managerial skills.

Innovation beyond firm boundaries: Strategic alliances and corporate innovation

In this paper, we empirically analyze how strategic alliances affect the innovation output of the firms forming the alliance. We find a positive effect of R&D-related strategic alliances on corporate innovation, as measured by the quantity and quality of patents filed. This effect is stronger for firms led by CEOs with higher general managerial skills, firms with greater experience from earlier alliances, and firms operating in R&D-intensive industries. Furthermore, the innovation-fostering effect of strategic alliances is more pronounced if alliance partnering firms share a common institutional blockholder or have a higher degree of technological proximity. We also document, for the first time in the literature, a unique contractual mechanism through which firms share the benefits of innovation with their alliance partners, namely, “co-patenting.”

Remuneration committees, CEO compensation, skills and retention

PurposeThe purpose of this study is threefold: to examine the impact of a remuneration committee (RC) on the level of chief executive officer (CEO) remuneration; whether firms with a RC, pay a premium to CEOs with different skill sets (general or specific); and whether a pay premium mitigates the potential for CEO turnover.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a sample of 5,305 firm-year observations on a data set drawn from companies listed on the Australian Securities Exchange for the period 2007 to 2014. The authors use ordinary least squares as well as logit regression techniques to test the formulated hypotheses. Difference in difference and propensity score matching techniques were undertaken to address the endogeneity concerns.FindingsThe findings show that firms with a RC pay a higher total remuneration to CEOs compared to firms without a RC. Furthermore, firms with a RC, value and reward CEOs with general skills by paying a premium not offered to CEOs with industry-specific skills. Paying a premium, in turn, mitigates CEO turnover by strengthening the CEO’s commitment to the organisation.Originality/valueThe study helps us to understand the critical role played by the RC in the remuneration of CEOs. The findings show that RCs act as an effective governance mechanism to deal with issues of executive remuneration and to retain skilled CEOs. Additionally, CEOs who acquire and develop general managerial skills will be able to extract higher pay from improved bargaining power. The findings will be of relevance to shareholders, regulators and company management who have an interest in executive pay and performance.

CEO's characteristics and value creation from corporate spin‐offs

AbstractAn important corporate spin‐off procedure is forming the spun‐off unit's management team by a parent firm, especially the selection of the spun‐off unit CEO. Using 207 completed spin‐offs with announcement and execution dates between 1994 and 2018, we investigate whether the financial expertise of spun‐off unit CEOs is an essential determinant of post‐spin‐off performance other than spun‐off unit CEOs’ other observable characteristics, including their general managerial skills. We find that the abnormal announcement returns for appointing financial expert CEOs at spun‐off units are between 2.83 and 3.14 percentage points larger than those generated for appointing non‐financial expert CEOs. Furthermore, spun‐off unit CEOs with financial expertise significantly improve spin‐off firms’ access to external capital resources and subsequent operating performance. Overall, we conclude that spun‐off unit CEOs’ financial expertise is a critical determinant of the value creation of spin‐off procedures. Our paper contributes to a growing literature on CEOs, their characteristics, and their impact on firm performance.

CEOs' general managerial skills and corporate risk taking subject to the moderator of CEO tenure

AbstractIn this study, we examine the relation between chief executive officers' (CEOs') general managerial skills and firms' risk‐taking behaviour. We find that generalist CEOs are associated with significantly higher firm risk, with the association decreasing significantly with CEO tenure. We propose the following managerial skills transformation explanation: the longer a CEO stays with a firm, the less general and more firm specific the CEO's skills and knowledge become; therefore, any effect of the CEO's general managerial skills only appears in the early years of tenure.

General Managerial Skills and Organizational Ambidexterity

Using insights from Upper Echelon Theory and human capital literature, the study establishes a link between the general managerial skills and organizational ambidexterity. I theorize that executives with higher general managerial skills gathered over their life time work experience have an inverted U-shaped relationship with organizational ambidexterity. Using a sample of firms from Drugs and Medical Device industries from 1993-2003, I find the support of the hypothesis. I find that general managerial skills positively moderate the relationship between organizational ambidexterity and firm performance. The results contribute to our understanding of antecedents of organizational ambidexterity as well as to the Upper Echelon Theory.

Does Managerial Human Capital Shape Investment Strategy?

We build a model investigating how managerial human capital affects a firm's optimal choice of external investment vs. internal investment strategy. At the heart of the model is the idea that managers with more general skills have better outside opportunities and hence can command greater compensation from their employer. We show that this greater compensation will optimally take the form of stronger incentives, which in turn lead to higher managerial effort. In this case, it becomes optimal for the firm to engage in activities in which managerial effort is most valuable. To the extent that the success of external investment through acquisitions is more directly dependant on managerial effort than internal investment which is relatively more dependent other internal factors; then we should observe a positive effect of genera skills on firms' tendency to adopt external investment strategy. Moreover, this relationship should be more pronounced the greater the agency concerns and associated strength of incentives. Empirical analysis using U.S. data provides consistent support for the above model predictions. To address endogeneity concerns, we use variation in enforceability of non-compete agreements as an instrument for general managerial skills. The IV regressions suggests a causal and positive impact of general skills on external investment strategy.

Chief Financial Officer Functional Diversity and the Timeliness of Annual Reports: A Comparative Study of Firms With Different Ownership Types.

Functional diversity is related to functional areas in which CFOs are experienced. It reflects their number of general managerial skills or social ties to some extent. In this paper, we try to examine whether there is an association between CFO functional diversity and the timeliness of annual reports. Using data on Chinese listed firms from 2009 to 2017, we found that in state-owned enterprises, there is a negative relationship between this diversity and timeliness. However, the promotion incentive of CFOs with functionally diverse experience can weaken this negative relationship. We also found that there is a positive relationship between the two factors in private enterprises whose offices are headquartered in regions with a low degree of marketization. We use difference-in-differences method to test the hypotheses again. The conclusions remain robust.

How do independent directors view generalist vs. specialist CEOs? Evidence from an exogenous regulatory shock

Exploiting the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act as a quasi-natural experiment, we explore how independent directors view generalist vs. specialist CEOs. Generalist CEOs possess the general managerial skills that can be applied across firms and industries. Our difference-in-difference estimates show that independent directors view generalist CEOs unfavorably. Firms forced to raise board independence experience a lower increase in CEO general ability than those not required to change board composition. Additional analysis confirms the results, including fixed- and random-effects regressions, propensity score matching, instrumental-variable analysis, and Oster's (2019) technique for testing coefficient stability.

Executive Mobility in the United States, 1920 to 2011

We examine the evolution of executive mobility from 1920-2011. In the decades leading up to 1999, CEO and CFO mobility increased. Starting in the early-2000s, in contrast, executive mobility declined sharply. We develop a new measure of aggregate executive mobility that nests both turnover and across-firm mobility. We use this measure to document that the benefits of reallocating executives, labor market size, compensation, and general managerial skills help explain executive mobility trends. We also show that following an increase in mobility, firms shift CEO pay towards option grants, consistent with a retention effect of option pay for executives.

How Do Independent Directors View Generalist vs. Specialist CEOS? Evidence from an Exogenous Regulatory Shock

Exploiting the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act as a quasi-natural experiment, we explore how independent directors view generalist vs. specialist CEOs. Generalist CEOs possess the general managerial skills that can be applied across firms and industries. Our difference-in-difference estimates show that independent directors view generalist CEOs unfavorably. Firms forced to raise board independence experience a lower increase in CEO general ability than those not required to change board composition. Additional analysis confirms the results, including fixed- and random-effects regressions, propensity score matching, instrumental-variable analysis, and Oster’s (2019) technique for testing coefficient stability.

General managerial skills and corporate social responsibility

We show that a CEO’s general managerial skills are negatively related to the level of corporate social responsibility (CSR) undertaken by the firm. This finding is robust to alternative measures of CSR and alternative econometric specifications. The negative effect of general managerial skills on CSR persists when we attempt to address potential endogeneity concerns by employing propensity score matching and an instrumental variables approach. Further, supplementary analysis reveals that this negative effect is stronger in tight labor markets and in firms where shareholders are more short term oriented, consistent with the notion that the broader set of outside options available to generalist chief executive officers acts as a labor market mechanism that makes them less concerned about the firm’s long-term prosperity and thus more reluctant to commit to CSR.

Rethinking the Career Anchors Inventory framework with insights from a finance transformation field study

It is claimed that the re-engineering and automation of routine work should free accountants to adopt broader, so-called ‘value-adding’ roles as partners to business decision-makers. The ‘new world of work’, involving new process-based methods, single instance ERP systems and the wholesale relocation of professional work to lower cost areas, brings opportunities for accountants in systems design and adding value to the business. For many others, the new reality may be a more competitive and less secure working environment, with a mid-level career bottleneck reflecting a polarisation between the upper and lower layers of the finance function.Based upon Schein's theory of career anchors and using exploratory sequential mixed methods, we consider the impact on the career perceptions of individual accountants as accounting expertise, traditionally embodied in people, is codified and embedded within end-to-end business processes in the context of a finance shared service centre. Key findings include new perceptions of careers with greater emphasis on the acquisition of general managerial competence and leadership skills, with the importance of cultivating a sense of ‘global connectedness' to maintain individual employability. Suggestions are made to update Schein's Career Orientation Inventory to better reflect the reality of accounting in the ‘new world of work'.

Foreign experience and CEO compensation

This paper investigates the relationship between a CEO's foreign experience and CEO compensation. Our analysis is based on the constituent firms of the UK FTSE 350 index from 1999 to 2015. We find that foreign CEOs and national CEOs with foreign working experience receive significantly higher levels of total compensation compared to similar UK CEOs without such characteristics. The results are robust to the endogenous CEO selection using propensity score matching methods, as well as other modelling approaches. Our results show that pay premiums are attributable to the specialized foreign expertise and foreign networks of CEOs, which stem from foreign experience rather than broader general managerial skills.

Do General Managerial Skills Spur Innovation?

We show that firms with chief executive officers (CEOs) who gain general managerial skills over their lifetime of work experience produce more patents. We address the potential endogenous CEO–firm matching bias using firm–CEO fixed effects and variation in the enforceability of noncompete agreements across states and over time during the CEO’s career. Our findings suggest that generalist CEOs spur innovation because they acquire knowledge beyond the firm’s current technological domain, and they have skills that can be applied elsewhere should innovation projects fail. We conclude that an efficient labor market for executives can promote innovation by providing a mechanism of tolerance for failure. The Internet appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2828 . This paper was accepted by Gustavo Manso, finance.

The impact of managerial ability on crisis-period corporate investment

In this study, we document a strong positive relation between pre-crisis managerial ability and corporate investment during the crisis period, which remains robust in the presence of a large array of control variables capturing corporate governance attributes, executive compensation incentives and CEO characteristics. This relationship was prevalent only among firms with CEOs that had general managerial skills, rather than firm-specific skills. Our results also show that the positive relationship between managerial ability and corporate investment was supported by the capacity of such firms to secure greater financing and be less vulnerable to financial constraints during the crisis. Finally, we find that, on average, the stock market evaluates crisis-period investments positively, yet this effect is evident solely among firms characterized by high pre-crisis managerial ability. Overall, the results are consistent with the view that high managerial ability helps to mitigate underinvestment problems during a crisis which in turn increases firm value.

English

Public-Private Partnership (PPP), as a current topic in theory and practice, has mostly been treated from the perspective of legislation and recognized by classical macroeconomic paradigm. The aim of this paper is to open a new aspect of dealing with this topic, both organizational and managerial. The paper underlines the importance of organizational design in a PPP, because experience has shown that without strong organization, coordination, defined rules and principles, there is no successful outcome and initiatives amount to a failed attempt. This is why interorganizational relations require well defined organizational architecture where it is clearly determined who, what, how and by when needs to deliver. In a PPP, this is achieved through a contractual framework and the creation of a special purpose company (SPC). The paper also affirms a new managerial position - PPP Manager - that apart from the general managerial skills and knowledge needs to be specialised in managing PPPs.

Team microfranchising as a response to the entrepreneurial capacity problem in low-income markets

Purpose– Drawing on a qualitative study of youth microfranchising in the Tanzanian computer sales, service, and training sector, the purpose of this study is to identify the challenges and advantages of a team-based approach to owning and operating a microfranchise business in the context of a least developed country. However, disadvantaged entrepreneurs typically still lack a critical mass of specialized technical skills and general managerial skills to manage a differentiated and competitive microenterprise business. A team-based approach to microfranchising can allow for combining specialized skills among more than one business owner; however, the potential risks and opportunities of team-microfranchising have not been studied. This study makes a contribution toward filling this gap by identifying five challenges and five advantages of team microfranchising which provide guidance for future research and practice.Design/methodology/approach– Qualitative data (interviews, observation and archival documents) were analyzed from an in-depth case study of youth microfranchising in the Tanzanian computer sales, service and training sector.Findings– Results revealed that microfranchise businesses in sectors that require multiple complementary higher-level skills are suited to a team microfranchise approach. Findings suggest that the greater the limitations on franchisee skills and the more pronounced the lack of public goods and institutions, the greater the potential for team microfranchising to overcome the entrepreneurial capacity constraints and institutional voids in low-income market contexts. Further, team-based microfranchises may be able to compete more effectively in sectors where economies of scale are not a significant factor, such as service industries and small-scale niche manufacturing. Also identified are five potential challenges and five areas of opportunity for practitioners seeking to implement a team-microfranchise approach.Research limitations/implications– The current study examined microfranchising among teams of youth in the Tanzanian computer sales and service sector. Further research could examine team microfranchising among other demographic groups in different sectors and the different regulatory, institutional and cultural contexts of other regions and countries.Social implications– If developed effectively in the right contexts, the team-based approach to microfranchising can potentially double the job-creation impacts of microfranchising ventures.Originality/value– This study is the first to assess the viability and boundary conditions of a team-based approach to microfranchising.