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Employee approval of CEOs and firm value: Evidence from Employees' choice awards

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  • Barnes, Spencer
  • Cheng, Yingmei

Abstract

Using Glassdoor's list of “Top CEOs by Employees' Choice,” we adopt a regression discontinuity (RD) specification to establish a causal link between the employee approval of CEOs and firm value. Having a CEO included in the top list results in an increase in firm performance in both stock returns and return on assets. Having a top CEO significantly increases a firm's employee efficiency, attraction to future employees, hiring of high-quality laborers such as inventors, and attraction to the customers. Our findings establish that the CEO-employee relationship is an important, though intangible, component of a corporation, and we emphasize the critical role of perceived corporate culture in the spirit of Guiso et al. (2015).

Suggested Citation

  • Barnes, Spencer & Cheng, Yingmei, 2023. "Employee approval of CEOs and firm value: Evidence from Employees' choice awards," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:corfin:v:78:y:2023:i:c:s0929119922001845
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2022.102341
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    CEO-employee relationship; Top CEO award; Corporate culture; Regression discontinuity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General
    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
    • M14 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Corporate Culture; Diversity; Social Responsibility

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