Does a CEO's Cultural Heritage Affect Performance under Competitive Pressure?

Nguyen, D.D.; Hagendorff, J.; Eshraghi, A.

Abstract

We exploit variation in the cultural heritage across U.S. CEOs who are the children or grandchildren of immigrants to demonstrate that the cultural origins of CEOs matter for corporate outcomes. Following shocks to industry competition, firms led by CEOs who are second- or third-generation immigrants are associated with a 6.2% higher profitability compared with the average firm. This effect weakens over successive immigrant generations and cannot be detected for top executives apart from the CEO. Additional analysis attributes this effect to various cultural values that prevail in a CEO’s ancestral country of origin.

Citation

Nguyen, D., Hagendorff, J., & Eshraghi, A. (2018). Does a CEO's Cultural Heritage Affect Performance under Competitive Pressure?. The Review of Financial Studies, 31(1), 97-141. https://doi.org/10.1093/rfs/hhx046

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Online Publication Date: May 19, 2017
• Publication Date: 2018-01
• Deposit Date: Sep 9, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 7, 2022
• Journal: Review of Financial Studies
• Print ISSN: 0893-9454
• Electronic ISSN: 1465-7368
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 31
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 97-141
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/rfs/hhx046
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1235034