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The purpose of this paper is to examine CEO wealth changes around seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) to explore the shareholder-manager incentive alignment in major corporate equity financing decisions.

The authors decompose CEO wealth into three major components: price effect, board compensation grant, and CEO’s own portfolio adjustment. The authors then compare SEO-event sample vs non-event samples; and evaluate the dynamic and long-run CEO wealth effect.

The authors find when market reacts negatively to SEO announcement leading to losses in CEO’s existing firm-related wealth, CEO gets additional grants to offset the losses. Although this appears to be a rent-seeking activity, the authors find that the additional grants are mainly in the form of stock options which would have no value if stock price failed to pick up in the future. In this sense, the additional grants align the interests between shareholders and managers. Consistent with this argument, the authors show that the additional grants motivate CEOs to promote the stock performance, benefiting themselves as well as shareholders in the long-run.

The study explicitly calculates the contribution of each wealth component to CEO total wealth effect. The results improve the understanding of CEO compensation policy change after major corporate event and contribute to the literature of the optimality explanation of prevailing compensation policy.

The change in CEO pay after their firms make large corporate investments is examined. Whether the change in CEO pay is a beneficial practice or harmful practice to firms is investigated.

A sample of firms that make large corporate investments is identified. For this sample, we identify the change in CEO pay before and after the investment, and we also measure the pay-for-size sensitivity of these investing firms.

For firms that make large corporate investments, CEOs get significantly more option grants when their firms’ stock returns are negative after the investments and these investing CEOs get more option grants than noninvesting CEOs.

The present study suggests that firms may have to increase CEO pay after large corporate investments to encourage investment. However, the results may also be consistent with an agency cost explanation. Future research should try to distinguish between the two explanations.

The study reveals a potential way to prevent CEOs from underinvesting.

The study provides important insights to shareholders on how to encourage CEOs to get their firms to invest, and on how to view CEO pay increases after their firms invest.

Recent studies explore how chief executive officer (CEO) social capital affects corporate decision-making. Well-connected CEOs can have greater access to information, which can lead to better corporate decisions or permit them to amass power from hierarchy status and make self-serving decisions. This study examines whether investors perceive CEO social capital as a signal of good decision-making (assuming information asymmetry) surrounding asset sell-off events.

The authors use multivariate regression analysis to examine the effect of CEO social capital on the cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) of the asset buyers and sellers. CARs are estimated using a market model in the period proximate to asset sell-off announcements.

The authors find that CEO social capital is positively associated with announcement returns of the asset sellers. Moreover, the positive effect of CEO social capital on announcement returns is more pronounced for sellers facing greater information asymmetry. An analysis of post-announcement stock performance reveals that the seller CEO social capital is associated with additional value generated for the shareholders of the seller after a month from the announcement date, especially if the transaction price is disclosed. Overall, findings are consistent with the argument that CEO social capital provides value in high information asymmetry environment.

To the authors' knowledge this is the first study to examine the effect of CEO social capital on the shareholders' wealth created by divestitures.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the market reaction to the appointments of chief executive officers (CEOs) in companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The authors focussed on the relationship between the characteristics of a newly appointed CEO and the shareholders’ reactions to the appointment of a CEO.

To measure shareholder reaction, the authors apply an event study methodology. The determinants of reaction are identified on the basis of multi-regression analysis.

The results reveal a negative market reaction to all CEO appointments, both new appointments and reappointments. Investor reaction is driven more by the financial condition of the company, the company’s market performance and the free float, than by the characteristics of a newly appointed CEO. Neither the origins and generation (age) nor the gender of a CEO influence share prices. The relationship between the educational background of a CEO and shareholders’ reactions is mixed. Furthermore, the appointment of an inexperienced CEO seems to be preferred by investors.

The study is restricted by certain limitations related to the adopted measures, the single-market research, data gaps and the selection of variables for regression analysis. A further cross-country study including Central and Eastern Europe and/or the transition economies of the Baltic Region is recommended. The relationship between the operating performance of a firm and its internal control mechanisms could be explored.

The findings might influence the decisions made by company owners and supervisory boards when appointing top executives, and might contribute to a better understanding of how CEO appointments can affect shareholder value creation. The results also provide important guidelines for institutions that oversee the financial system.

The findings of this study are expected to the findings are expected to contribute to the literature on the empirical analysis of the shareholder wealth effect, on signalling theory, on the phenomenon of information asymmetry and on corporate governance. The study covers a full economic cycle of the capital market, including the financial crisis and financial bubbles, and it fills a gap in the research regarding emerging markets and transition economies in Europe.

This study aims to examine the effects of firm performance on chief executive officer (CEO) turnover and the moderating role of CEO attributes on the firm performance–CEO turnover relationship.

Probit regressions were used to examine the relationship between various CEO attributes and CEO turnover and the moderation effect of firm performance on the CEO attributes–CEO turnover relationship. The sample comprises firms from the FTSE 350 Index covering the period 1999–2018.

The results indicate that firm performance negatively and significantly impacts CEO turnover. Further analysis reveals that selected CEO attributes, namely, CEO internal experience, CEO network size and CEO age, moderate the relationship between firm performance and CEO turnover. Specifically, CEO internal experience and performance combine to reduce the likelihood of CEO turnover. However, CEO network size and age when combined with firm performance increase the likelihood of CEO turnover.

The results imply that boards should pay more attention to CEO attributes in their decisions to hire and fire executive managers as these factors may affect a wide variety of firm outcomes.

This paper makes key contributions to the CEO turnover and corporate governance literature by providing evidence of key factors other than performance that can affect the CEO dismissal decision. Specifically, this study shows that CEO attributes such as CEO internal experience, CEO networks and CEO age far outweigh the importance of performance as a factor influencing CEO turnover decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether innovation effort is lower for firms exhibiting signs of higher chief executive officer (CEO) dominance and whether such CEOs can be incentivized to pursue risky ventures such as innovation projects in line with shareholder's interests that are geared toward the long-term growth of the firm.

The paper utilizes panel data of US publicly listed companies (2007–2016) to address the influence of CEO dominance on firm innovation effort and the moderating effects of incentives in this relationship through ordinary least squares (OLS) estimations. A two-stage least squares (2SLS) technique is also employed to address possible endogeneity. As a robustness check, further analysis is conducted utilizing an alternative proxy for CEO incentive as well as Tobit analysis (with panel-level random effects).

Results from both OLS and Tobit estimations offer two key findings. First, there is a significantly negative relationship between CEO pay slice and firm research and development (R&D) intensity. Second, the interaction effect of CEO incentives and CEO dominance is significant and positive.

When provided with the right incentives, such as those that reward long-term performance, dominant CEOs can be incentivized to go after risky ventures like innovation projects that are crucial to promoting the long-term growth of the firm.

This paper utilizes R&D instead of patent outputs as proxies for innovation where the former enables studying R&D efforts for more recent periods compared to prior studies that utilize patent data.

This study examines the role of the observable and unobservable characteristics of top management on earning management and firm risk in China.

The authors used manager-firm matched panel for 104 non-financial firms listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange between 2010 and 2018. The authors also trace the persistence of managerial financial styles and their active role across two different firms between which managers switched during the sample period.

The results show that managers' financial styles indeed influence earning management and firm risk and that this influence differs across different managers. These findings are robust when tested for the persistence and active role of managers. Furthermore, individual characteristics such as age, gender, qualification and experience influence managers' financial styles.

Given their findings, the authors propose that financial analysts and potential investors should not only depend on quantitative data but also consider the individual characteristics of managers when evaluating firms.

The findings of this study carry serious implications for managers, policymakers and potential investors. The findings assist the external auditors in measuring the risk of material misstatement, the various regulatory bodies to assess the quality of financial reporting and the users of financial statements to evaluate the earnings and make further investment decisions considering not only the quantitative data but also the individual characteristics of top managers.

The current study examines the observable and unobservable characteristics of top management on firm risk and earnings management in Chinese context.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of managerial risk exposure on capital structure selection (net debt, or debt minus cash) as well as return on assets, capital expenditures, research and development expenditures and stock price performance.

The paper compares a sample of 123 all‐equity firms to a set of matching levered firms selected on the basis of industry, market cap and market‐to‐book assets. Managerial incentives are measured using the delta and vega of the manager's stock and option holdings.

Net debt levels decline as CEO wealth sensitivity to stock price changes (delta) increases. However, the paper finds no differences between the all‐equity firms and their levered matching firms in terms of return on assets, capital expenditures, R&D expense, or long run stock price performance.

Findings are consistent with the idea that managerial incentives drive net debt decisions even among all‐equity firms. However, given that there are no differences between the sample firms and their matched firms in terms of investment or stock price performance, the effect of managerial risk aversion appears to be confined to financial policy.

The paper uses modern methods for measuring managerial risk exposure to revisit the literature on all‐equity firms, and show that managerial risk exposure affects the net debt decision in these firms.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the usefulness of accounting and market information when considering the issue of CEO turnovers in Indonesia.

The samples used in this research were corporations identified to have undergone (routinely or non‐routinely) top management turnovers (which in this case were President Directors). This study used samples from all corporations that experienced CEO turnover during the period of 1998‐2006 and determined the accounting variables that were thought to explain the turnovers. Corporations that did not experience CEO turnovers throughout the observed period were used as the control group. The final samples for both data sources were decided after considering data availability and confounding effects within the period of observation and were tested by using the LOGIT (separately) model, due to the fact that the dependent variables used were binary variables: 1 for turnover and 0 for no‐turnover.

The overall results indicated that decreasing accounting and market performance within a company, in an average period of three years, encouraged CEO turnovers.

This paper did not take into account the wider reasons for turnovers, such as CEOs hitting pension age (retirement), death, or forced or voluntary turnovers, all of which in previous research were areas that showed considerable influence. In future research, it would be important to consider those characteristics, along with the personalities of the CEOs who left the firms and those who were brought in.

Owners of firms have to be careful when making decisions to turnover CEOs because the action can generate significant reactions from the market. This market reaction, of course, is the factor that influences the prosperity of the company.

This paper demonstrates that when accounting and market performance is good, the probability that the presiding CEO will not be fired is higher, and vice versa.

Director interlocks, with their extended resources and shared experiences, have the potential power to go beyond the basic role of providing advice and monitoring the activities of an organization. Interlocked directors can have a cross-cultural role in manipulating corporate choices and strategies in several areas, including capital structure, based on learned behavior in their internal company. Shareholders and creditors are the two main capital providers for a company. However, their risk return horizons are very different, and policies that benefit one group may not be optimal to the other. Interlocks can act as carriers of sub-par practices that affect the behavior of several organizations. Such transactional and relational activities may increase short-term value for equity shareholders, but increase the risk for the creditors. The purpose of this paper is to examine cross-cultural effects of interlocks on corporate strategies that affect this essential agency relationship.

This paper surveys the extant literature on board interlocks, board practices, equity valuation and credit risk to develop a link between such interlocks and creditor protection. Based on a brief survey of the central concepts of governance and the role of directors, this paper then provides various propositions on the role of interlocking directorships and their effect on the shareholder–creditor agency problem.

Director interlocks, through their linked common practices, have the potential to increase or worsen shareholder–creditor conflicts by magnifying strategic practices like short-termism, earnings management or through its effects on chief executive officer compensation. Such cross-cultural effects persist across ownership structures and cultural differences in governance.

The paper is not an empirical study of the conflict. This paper uses a literature review to arrive at propositions that may impact shareholder–creditor conflicts.

Several studies have shown cronyism and the dense corporate network has been a large factor in the financial crisis that affected both shareholders and creditors. As the influence of creditors grows with the current availability, and therefore increase in debt levels, this conflict can be magnified through homophily inherent in interlocks. For an organization to be successful in its role of protecting all stakeholders, especially the two major providers of equity capital, factors that cause conflicts must be taken into account while developing the tenets of governance policies and, on a regular basis, during the strategic planning process within the organization. Regulations affecting interlocks, including governance policies, must therefore take into account such influences.

Board interlocks act as channels of information between companies, creating a social network where processes and polices are shared and implemented as defined by the concept of homophily. Such management actions reduce both the quality of information available to creditors and their monitoring capabilities. This juxtaposition of shareholder and creditor interest can, therefore, be worsened by director interlocks.

Prior literature has not specifically linked director interlocks and their mutual impact on the culture and strategy of linked corporations to the shareholder–creditor conflict.