IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/indrel/v53y2022i1p53-70.html

Unionization and CEO turnover

Author

Listed:
  • Nancy D. Ursel
  • Ligang Zhong

Abstract

This article investigates whether unions have power to influence turnover of poorly performing chief executive officers (CEOs). Employing the transparency coalition framework, we develop hypotheses regarding CEO tenure given unionization, performance‐turnover sensitivity, and firm performance following CEO turnover. We use Cox regression and a data set of US firms from 1993 to 2013 to show that CEO turnover is accelerated at firms that unionize. Discontinuity analysis suggests that the relationship is causal. Overall, the results show the significance of unions in the key corporate governance event of CEO turnover and suggest that, though they may proceed independently and for their own traditional goals of good pay and job conditions for their members, unions can be allies of investors and boards or directors when it comes to removing underperforming CEOs.

Suggested Citation

  • Nancy D. Ursel & Ligang Zhong, 2022. "Unionization and CEO turnover," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(1), pages 53-70, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:indrel:v:53:y:2022:i:1:p:53-70
    DOI: 10.1111/irj.12354
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12354
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/irj.12354?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chen, Huafeng Jason & Kacperczyk, Marcin & Ortiz-Molina, Hernán, 2011. "Labor Unions, Operating Flexibility, and the Cost of Equity," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(1), pages 25-58, February.
    2. Even, William E. & Macpherson, David, 2004. "Company Stock in Pension Funds," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 57(2), pages 299-313, June.
    3. Paul M. Guest, 2016. "Executive Mobility and Minority Status," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(4), pages 604-631, October.
    4. Abowd, John M, 1989. "The Effect of Wage Bargains on the Stock Market Value of the Firm," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 774-800, September.
    5. Mario Cleves & William W. Gould & Roberto G. Gutierrez & Yulia Marchenko, 2010. "An Introduction to Survival Analysis Using Stata," Stata Press books, StataCorp LLC, edition 3, number saus3, March.
    6. Kenneth M. Lehn & Mengxin Zhao, 2006. "CEO Turnover after Acquisitions: Are Bad Bidders Fired?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1759-1811, August.
    7. Huang, Qianqian & Jiang, Feng & Lie, Erik & Que, Tingting, 2017. "The Effect of Labor Unions on CEO Compensation," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(2), pages 553-582, April.
    8. Sebastian Calonico & Matias D. Cattaneo & Max H. Farrell & Rocío Titiunik, 2019. "Regression Discontinuity Designs Using Covariates," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(3), pages 442-451, July.
    9. Louis N. Christofides & Andrew J. Oswald, 1992. "Real Wage Determination and Rent-Sharing in Collective Bargaining Agreements," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(3), pages 985-1002.
    10. Abrevaya, Jason, 1997. "The equivalence of two estimators of the fixed-effects logit model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 41-43, August.
    11. Bradon Ellem & Caleb Goods & Patricia Todd, 2020. "Rethinking Power, Strategy and Renewal: Members and Unions in Crisis," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(2), pages 424-446, June.
    12. Henry G. Manne, 1965. "Mergers and the Market for Corporate Control," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 73(2), pages 110-110.
    13. Muhammad Umar Boodoo, 2020. "The Influence of Unions on CSR: Is There a Trade‐Off Between Employee‐Oriented and Non–Employee‐Oriented Policies?," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(4), pages 816-843, December.
    14. Peter Nolan & Paul Marginson, 1990. "Skating on Thin Ice? David Metcalf on Trade Unions and Productivity," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 28(2), pages 227-247, July.
    15. Cramton, Peter C & Tracy, Joseph S, 1992. "Strikes and Holdouts in Wage Bargaining: Theory and Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(1), pages 100-121, March.
    16. Sebastian Calonico & Matias D. Cattaneo & Rocio Titiunik, 2014. "Robust Nonparametric Confidence Intervals for Regression‐Discontinuity Designs," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82, pages 2295-2326, November.
    17. Henry G. Manne, 1965. "Mergers and the Market for Corporate Control," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 73(4), pages 351-351.
    18. Paul Willman & Alex Bryson & John Forth, 2020. "UK Unions, Collective Action and the Cost Disease," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(2), pages 447-470, June.
    19. Henry S. Farber & Bruce Western, 2002. "Ronald Reagan and the Politics of Declining Union Organization," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 40(3), pages 385-401, September.
    20. Stuart L. Gillan & Jay C. Hartzell & Robert Parrino, 2009. "Explicit versus Implicit Contracts: Evidence from CEO Employment Agreements," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(4), pages 1629-1655, August.
    21. Florian S. Peters & Alexander F. Wagner, 2014. "The Executive Turnover Risk Premium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(4), pages 1529-1563, August.
    22. Dirk Jenter & Fadi Kanaan, 2015. "CEO Turnover and Relative Performance Evaluation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(5), pages 2155-2184, October.
    23. Louis†Philippe Beland & Bulent Unel, 2018. "Governors' Party Affiliation and Unions," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(2), pages 177-205, April.
    24. Ruback, Richard S & Zimmerman, Martin B, 1984. "Unionization and Profitability: Evidence from the Capital Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(6), pages 1134-1157, December.
    25. Engel, Ellen & Hayes, Rachel M. & Wang, Xue, 2003. "CEO turnover and properties of accounting information," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1-3), pages 197-226, December.
    26. Paul Bridgen & Marek Naczyk, 2019. "Shareholders of the World United? Organized Labour's Preferences on Corporate Governance under Pension Fund Capitalism in the United States, United Kingdom and France," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 57(3), pages 651-675, September.
    27. Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R. & Puri, Manju, 2013. "Managerial attitudes and corporate actions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(1), pages 103-121.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Matthias Kiefer & Edward Jones & Andrew Adams, 2016. "Principals, Agents and Incomplete Contracts: Are Surrender of Control and Renegotiation the Solution?," CFI Discussion Papers 1603, Centre for Finance and Investment, Heriot Watt University.
    2. Ghaly, Mohamed & Kostakis, Alexandros & Stathopoulos, Konstantinos, 2021. "The (non-) effect of labor unionization on firm risk: Evidence from the options market," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    3. Raphael Flepp & Pascal Flurin Meier, 2024. "Struck by Luck: Noisy Capability Cues and CEO Dismissal," Working Papers 389, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW).
    4. Campbell, T. Colin & Gallmeyer, Michael & Johnson, Shane A. & Rutherford, Jessica & Stanley, Brooke W., 2011. "CEO optimism and forced turnover," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(3), pages 695-712, September.
    5. Armstrong, Christopher S. & Guay, Wayne R. & Weber, Joseph P., 2010. "The role of information and financial reporting in corporate governance and debt contracting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 179-234, December.
    6. Cho, DuckKi & Choi, Lyungmae, 2024. "Shadow union in local labor markets and corporate financing policies," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    7. Colak, Gonul & Korkeamäki, Timo P. & Meyer, Niclas Oskar, 2024. "ESG and CEO turnover around the world," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    8. He, Xiaoxiao & Zhu, Margaret Rui, 2020. "Are interim CEOs just caretakers?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    9. Nobel Prize Committee, 2016. "Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström: Contract Theory," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2016-1, Nobel Prize Committee.
    10. Cremers, K.J. Martijn & Litov, Lubomir P. & Sepe, Simone M., 2017. "Staggered boards and long-term firm value, revisited," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(2), pages 422-444.
    11. Humphery-Jenner, M., 2011. "Internal and External Discipline Following Securities Class Actions," Discussion Paper 2011-044, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    12. Baxamusa, Mufaddal & Jalal, Abu, 2024. "Environmental regulations, agency costs, and firm performance," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(PA).
    13. Derek Horstmeyer & Kara Wells, 2020. "When Do Governance Mechanisms Matter Most?," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 10(01), pages 1-52, February.
    14. Dessaint, Olivier & Golubov, Andrey & Volpin, Paolo, 2017. "Employment protection and takeovers," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(2), pages 369-388.
    15. Joshua Rosett, 1989. "Do Union Wealth Concessions Explain Takeover Premiums? The Evidence on Contract Wages," NBER Working Papers 3187, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Woo-Jin Chang & Rachel M. Hayes & Stephen A. Hillegeist, 2016. "Financial Distress Risk and New CEO Compensation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(2), pages 479-501, February.
    17. Cready, William M. & Dai, Zhonglan & Ma, Guang & Nanda, Vikram, 2024. "Information in unexpected bonus cuts: Firm performance and CEO firings," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    18. Brett W. Myers & Alessio Saretto, 2016. "Does Capital Structure Affect the Behavior of Nonfinancial Stakeholders? An Empirical Investigation into Leverage and Union Strikes," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(11), pages 3235-3253, November.
    19. Colak, Gonul & Liljeblom, Eva, 2022. "Easy cleanups or forbearing improvements: The effect of CEO tenure on successor’s performance," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    20. Alex Edmans & Xavier Gabaix, 2016. "Executive Compensation: A Modern Primer," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1232-1287, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:indrel:v:53:y:2022:i:1:p:53-70. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0019-8692 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.