Managers have strong incentives to present a favorable image of their companies to investors, analysts, and the public, raising concerns about the credibility of voluntary disclosures. These concerns are particularly severe for unaudited forward-looking disclosures because they are often qualitative …

Active and retired top executives are prime candidates for outside director positions. Conventional wisdom suggests that these individuals’ experience equips them to serve effectively as monitors and advisers to management. Nevertheless, the business press has revealed that some executives remain …

The ongoing controversy surrounding the artificial intelligence company OpenAI, Inc. (OpenAI) offers valuable, broad-based governance lessons for corporate boards across industry sectors and regardless of whether they are for-profit or non-profit companies. The lessons include those relating to mission restrictions, …

CEOs are increasingly stepping into the limelight, not as business leaders but as activists. From advocating for LGBTQ+ rights to speaking out on gun control and police use-of-force, CEOs now engage on many polarizing social and political issues. Scholars have …

In recent years, certain CEOs have gained remarkable prominence and influence not only within the business world, but also in mainstream media. These “superstar” CEOs are portrayed as exceptional, charismatic, and innovative leaders capable of extraordinary financial results. In other …

Institutional investors with long-term horizons, referred to as dedicated institutional investors, have a positive impact on corporate innovation. Studies (e.g., Gormley and Matsa, 2016; Jiang and Yuan, 2018; Kim, et al. 2019; Kedia et al., 2020) have consistently documented that …

Executive compensation and corporate taxation are both hot button issues, but can they be related? In a recent paper, we examine how CEO bonus contracts reinforce global tax incentives and show that executive pay practices helped drive corporate activity …

Financial theory suggests that a firm with strong corporate governance (e.g., an effective board of directors), keeps a CEO exactly as long as is optimal for the firm. When the firm’s board and other corporate governance mechanisms are ineffective, however, …

CEO activism, the practice of CEOs or other executives taking a public stance on social, political, or environmental issues not directly related to their companies’ businesses, has been on the rise these past few years.  Moreover, several well-publicized polls …

The independence of corporate boards is a serious concern to shareholders and regulators. The influence CEOs have over director appointments accentuates this concern. It is not uncommon to see CEOs appointing directors with personal or business ties (e.g., relatives, friends, …

One-third of S&P 1500 CEOs reduced their base salary in 2020 as the onset of the coronavirus pandemic caused widespread economic disruption. These pay cuts were often accompanied by press releases that emphasized notions of CEOs “leading from the front,” …

Over the past few decades, chief executive officer (CEO) pay has risen spectacularly, as has debate regarding why this has occurred and whether policy should or can correct it. Yet one glaring fact about the C-Suite eludes much of the …

CEOs, in particular founder-CEOs, are often visionaries with strong beliefs about the right strategic direction for their firms. For example, Apple CEO and founder Steve Jobs was known to be obsessed with product quality and design. The strategy to produce …

Research has shown that venture capital (VC) firms substantially influence the overall economy. According to Gornall and Strebulaev (2021), among all U.S. public companies founded since 1968, VC-backed companies account for 77 percent of total market capitalization, 41 percent of …

When it comes to financial disclosure, headline numbers are not all that matters. Equally important are what company executives talk about – and even how they talk about it. A large and growing body of literature in finance and accounting …

Among the many goals of the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation was to increase CEOs’ accountability for the veracity of financial statements by requiring that they personally certify financial disclosures. Although that provision has not led to  successful prosecutions of offending executives, our …

One of management’s many important roles is to provide information to market participants. However, this information may be self-serving rather than beneficial to the market, especially in the case of voluntary disclosure. To curb this possibility, boards of directors are …

The benefits and drawbacks of generalist CEOs – those with the talent and skill to manage companies in various industries – have been fiercely debated in contemporary research. Some research touts generalist CEOs’ varied professional experiences and ability to launch …