IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jmgtgv/v20y2016i1p179-200.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do CEOs exercise managerial discretion to save their jobs?

Author

Listed:
  • Sungsoo Kim
  • Rakesh Sambharya
  • Joon Yang

Abstract

Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) wield considerable power and authority. In many industries and contexts, CEO turnover is studied in terms of antecedents, the event itself, and the related consequences. However, the extent to which CEOs exert their power and attempt to prevent their dismissal has not been thoroughly examined. In this study, we examine the role of CEOs exercising managerial discretion in their effort to prevent their own corporate demise. We hypothesize that CEOs cut discretionary expenses such as research and development, advertising, and rent in order to boost earnings and enhance financial performance. A sample of CEO turnover from Standard and Poor’s ExecComp database for the period 1992–1998 in US firms yielded 474 turnover firms and 2,066 control firm-years. We tested the effects of CEO turnover and managerial discretion on firm performance measured by cumulative abnormal stock returns. We also compared the turnover and non-turnover firms in terms of pattern of discretionary spending prior to CEO turnover. The results are consistent with our prediction that CEOs facing termination attempt to post higher earnings by reducing discretionary spending after controlling for firm performance, firm diversification, book to market ratio, and CEO ownership, industry-, and year dummies. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016

Suggested Citation

  • Sungsoo Kim & Rakesh Sambharya & Joon Yang, 2016. "Do CEOs exercise managerial discretion to save their jobs?," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 20(1), pages 179-200, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jmgtgv:v:20:y:2016:i:1:p:179-200
    DOI: 10.1007/s10997-014-9300-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10997-014-9300-2
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10997-014-9300-2?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Naima Lassoued & Imen Khanchel, 2023. "Voluntary CSR disclosure and CEO narcissism: the moderating role of CEO duality and board gender diversity," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 1075-1123, April.
    2. Ahlem Dabbebi & Naima Lassoued & Imen Khanchel, 2022. "Peering through the smokescreen: ESG disclosure and CEO personality," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(7), pages 3147-3164, October.
    3. Al-Shammari, Marwan & Rasheed, Abdul & Al-Shammari, Hussam A., 2019. "CEO narcissism and corporate social responsibility: Does CEO narcissism affect CSR focus?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 106-117.
    4. Zhaocheng Xu & Jingchuan Hou, 2021. "Effects of CEO Overseas Experience on Corporate Social Responsibility: Evidence from Chinese Manufacturing Listed Companies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-24, May.
    5. Pascal Nguyen & Nahid Rahman & Ruoyun Zhao, 2018. "CEO characteristics and firm valuation: a quantile regression analysis," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 22(1), pages 133-151, March.

    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:kap:jmgtgv:v:20:y:2016:i:1:p:179-200. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.