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This paper aims to explore the association between chairperson hubris and the internationalization of firms belonging to business groups in an emerging market, India, under the boundary conditions of business group internationalization and the tenure of independent board members.

Archival data of 163 Indian family firms over a five-year period were used.

The study highlights the significance of chairperson hubris in determining the internationalization of family firms in India and the influence that business group internationalization and the tenure of independent board members have on the chairperson hubris and firm internationalization relationships.

Although literature exists on drivers of internationalization, micro-foundations theories such as chairperson hubris have been less explored in the international business literature, especially in the context of emerging markets.

Real options theory posits that multinationality provides additional operating flexibility and helps firms reduce downside risk. This study aims to explore the effects of chief executive officer (CEO) characteristics on the downside risk implication of multinationality in Chinese multinational corporations (MNCs).

This study gathers a sample of Chinese MNCs from 2009 to 2020 and deploys a Tobit panel estimation model with fixed effects in the empirical analysis.

This study finds that multinationality has a significant negative effect on downside risk. The downside risk reduction effect of multinationality is stronger in firms led by older CEOs, women CEOs, CEOs with overseas experience or broader functional backgrounds or those with higher educational levels. Additionally, the above effects of CEO characteristics on the downside risk reduction effect of multinationality are more pronounced in firms with smaller top management team (TMT) sizes. Hence, the findings show that the multinational network constructed by Chinese MNCs could offer great operating flexibility, and CEO characteristics and the CEO–TMT interface play an important role in achieving real options flexibility from multinationality.

This study shows that multinationality could be an effective way for emerging market firms to reduce business risk. This study helps identify CEO characteristics that are associated with real option performance and emphasizes that CEO personal attitudes and abilities could influence the real options flexibility obtained from multinationality. This study also contributes to the understanding of micro foundations in international business by focusing on the role of CEO characteristics and the CEO–TMT interface in the downside risk implications of multinationality.

Although research on family firms (FF) internationalization has seen a boom over the past 30 years, the understanding of how FFs internationalize with equity modes is still fragmented. Indeed, the majority of extant literature on this topic identifies internationalization with export, overlooking the alternative equity-based entry modes FFs have when entering a foreign country. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap with a framework-based systematic literature review on the topic to improve the understanding of this phenomenon and propose a way forward.

This study conducted a framework-based systematic literature review of 93 papers published between 1993 and 2021.

This study adds to the current debate on FFs internationalization by integrating previous review efforts with a deeper investigation of FFs’ equity-based entry modes. This study contributes to this body of knowledge in the family business research by synthetizing and systematizing extant literature with a framework-based approach from the international business (IB) field. In so doing, this study builds a stronger link between these two areas of research. Finally, research gaps and promising research avenues for future studies are also presented.

This study responds to the call to create a dialogue between the FFs and IB fields by systematizing the extant body of knowledge and integrating the FF literature with one of the most widely used frameworks (Pan and Tse, 2000) on entry modes in the IB domain.

The purpose of this paper is to longitudinally analyse the evolution of multiple narrative textual characteristics in the chairman’s statements of Guinness from 1948 to 1996, with the aim of studying impression management influences. It attempts to contribute insights on impression management over time.

The paper attempts to contribute to external accounting communication literature, by building on the socio-psychological tradition within the functionalist-behavioural transmission perspective. The paper analyses multiple textual characteristics (positive, negative, tentative, future and external references, length, numeric references and first person pronouns) over 49 years and their potential relationship to profitability. Other possible disclosure drivers are also controlled.

The findings show that Guinness consistently used qualitative textual characteristics with a self-serving bias, but did not use those with a more quantitative character. Continual profits achieved by the company, and the high corporate/personal reputation of the company/chairpersons, inter alia, may well explain limited evidence of impression management associated with quantitative textual characteristics. The context appears related to the evolution of the broad communication pattern.

Impression management is likely to be present in some form in corporate disclosures of most companies, not only those companies with losses. If successful, financial reporting quality may be undermined and capital misallocations may result. Companies with a high public exposure such as those with a high reputation or profitability may use impression management in a different way.

Studies analysing multiple textual characteristics in corporate narratives tend to focus on different companies in a single year, or in two consecutive years. This study analyses multiple textual characteristics over many consecutive years. It also gives an original historical perspective, by studying how impression management relates to its context, as demonstrated by a unique data set. In addition, by using the same company, the possibility that different corporate characteristics between companies will affect results is removed. Moreover, Guinness, a well-known international company, was somewhat unique as it achieved continual profits.

This study seeks to examine whether CEO duality further exacerbates CEOs' motivation of self‐interest to engage in mergers and acquisitions to increase their compensation.

Regression tests using CEO compensation as the dependent variable, and CEO duality, firm size and firm performance as independent test and control variables. The regression tests are used for various sub‐samples of the firms, those that merge and those that have CEO duality.

The results indicate that for merging firms CEO compensation is positively associated with firm size. However, this association is unaffected by CEO duality. For non‐merging firms, the results indicate that CEO compensation is positively associated with firm size and firm performance. CEO duality moderates the positive association between CEO compensation and firm performance.

This study is limited to the extent that it does not observe the deliberations of compensation committees in their setting of CEO compensation, but only examines the outcomes of those deliberations. A future area of research is to examine compensation schemes of merger/acquisition CEOs in the context of other government structures, such as board independence and composition.

Shareholders who desire to keep CEO compensation levels positively associated with firm performance may consider supporting the separation of the positions of CEO and Chairperson of the Board.

This study contributes to the literature by concluding that governance structure influences CEO compensation schemes and CEOs of merging firms command higher compensation in spite of governance structure and firm performance.

The chapter reviews existing research on merger and acquisition (M&A) activities and chief executive officers (CEOs) in organizations. The study provides insights into the existing literature and proposes avenues for future research on M&A activities and CEOs. The present study adopts bibliometric analysis on 319 articles identified from the literature. The articles selected for analysis are extracted from the Scopus database and are selected based on the focus of the papers on M&A activities and CEOs. Existing studies on M&A activities and CEOs demonstrate that CEOs affect M&A activities, CEOs affect the performance of M&A activities, and M&A activities also influence the role of CEOs in M&A activities. We identify and list scientific mapping in trending topics, scientific production, citation analysis, prominent authors, and their affiliations. The study is relevant to academicians, practitioners, and policymakers interested in corporate finance, especially in the areas overlapping CEO attributes and M&A activities.

How has upper echelons theory (UET) (Hambrick and Mason, 1984) been evolving over time? Through the historical discussion, this paper aims to provide an updated – and also innovative from some aspects – big picture on this famous approach to strategic management. In fact, after more than 30 years since its original conceptualization, the authors believe that the UE field is mature enough for a critical attempt to provide all those scholars and practitioners interested in strategic leadership with a comprehensive ground for future analyses, a ground which, to the authors’ knowledge, is still missing.

The authors mostly use a historical narrative to offer a critical account of the conceptual and methodological developments occurring under UE lenses over time. The authors believe that the historical approach can be particularly useful because it can help understand and explain why and how these developments have been conjectured and implemented.

Two mainly intertwined insights emerge from our analysis: on the one hand, the developments subsequent to the seminal 1984 UE model have gradually, although constantly, reduced its strongly voluntarist assumptions on strategic leadership toward more moderated co-evolutionary lenses; on the other hand, the emerging psychological and cognitive moderators of UE variables are presently reinforcing the centrality of dominant coalitions, in that they affect their decision-making processes and strategic choices.

From the critical discussion, a possible updated UE model based on co-evolutionary lenses finally emerges. Prospective research avenues in this management field are also provided.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the understanding of the relationship between board involvement and corporate performance within the context of developing countries.

A number of aspects related to board involvement, including board’s shareholdings, frequency of board meetings, availability of independent board committees, board size, CEO duality, and CEO is being a promoter, were examined in order to explore their influence on corporate performance measured in terms of earnings per share. The study mainly draws on agency theory, and is supplemented by resource dependence and stewardship theories. Multiple regression analysis is utilized to analyze the data gathered from a sample of 212 publicly listed companies in 20 industries in the Colombo Stock Exchange in Sri Lanka.

Among the aspects of board involvement considered, board’s shareholdings, board meetings frequency, independent committees, and CEO duality showed a positive influence on corporate performance. However, two other aspects, namely CEO being a promoter, and the size of corporate boards showed a negative effect. The findings also suggest that the use of multiple theories, rather than depending on a single theory, is more effective in understanding the relationships examined in this study. Further, the study highlights the need to be cautious in utilizing the theories that are more applicable to matured western economies when analyzing issues relating to developing countries.

This study makes an original contribution to corporate governance literature by examining the relationship between board involvement and corporate performance in a developing country, namely Sri Lanka. The study also adds to the existing literature by utilizing multiple theories to examine the issue under investigation.

The purpose of this paper is to explain institutional changes in the Swedish meat industry after major external events.

Analysis based on secondary data sources and interviews with people involved when the dominant meat co-operative in Sweden underwent major changes.

The decline in the Swedish meat industry is interpreted using the theory of institutional change presented by Aoki (2007, 2011). The country’s former national agricultural policy created a specific set of norms and values. Co-operatives were considered to be indispensable. The co-operative sector was large and hierarchically organised. Therefore, external signals did not create sufficient endogenous processes within the co-operatives. Co-operative adaptation to rising competitive pressure took place only reluctantly and belatedly. Hence many farmer-members defected and the major co-operative faced finally insurmountable problems. A strong ideological conviction caused the once dominant co-operative to collapse and much of the Swedish meat industry to disappear.

This study shows that strong ideology (here a conviction about the advantages of politically governed co-operatives) can hamper endogenous processes within an organisation. Management may ignore outside influences, to the extent that even a large industry is impaired. Other large, hierarchically structured and top-governed organisations with a strong ideology may behave in a similar way.