The CEO’s origin and fame in relation to company performance and market perception

Abstract

This article investigated decisions to change chief executive officer (CEO) and the relationships between the characteristics of the new CEO chosen and both company performance and stock market perceptions. Our study aims to broaden the understanding in an area that remains underexplored by the literature. In particular, we present a new direction for the study of Malmendier and Tate (2009) by addressing the question of superstar CEOs considering the market’s perception regarding the hiring of an executive and their performance in the new company. The article highlights a new research question that permeates the market’s perception with regard to changing executives classified as superstars. In addition, the study connects the literature on superstar CEOs and changing executives, presenting new findings for the theme. The results obtained provide new findings for the literature and elucidate that superstar CEOs are positively evaluated by the market at the time of the hiring announcement. However, these executives do not show better performance than the other companies in the sector in subsequent periods, which corroborates and extends the negative aspects found by Malmendier and Tate (2009). The methodology used was an event study, OLS, Logit, and Probit. This article highlights that bigger companies with better operational performance have a greater probability of choosing a new CEO with superstar status in situations of changing executives. CEOs of external origin and classified as superstars are, on average, better evaluated than their peers by the market in the event window relating to the hiring announcement. However, the performance of these executives may fall short of the results calculated for the sector average. The aforementioned results broaden the discussion regarding decisions to change executives and highlight new findings about the role of the CEO’s origin and their status of recognition and fame.