Me, Myself, and I: Influence of CEO Narcissism on Firms' Innovation Proclivity and Likelihood of Marketing Controversies

摘要

The strategic decisions taken by Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) significantly impact firms' key stakeholders and society at large. Empirical findings in this area have highlighted that CEOs are heterogeneous in their strategic choices (Ham-brick 2007). CEOs' personal characteristics can shed some light on this heterogeneity (England 1967). However, while a number of researchers have investigated the influence of CEOs' characteristics on their decision-making, these researchers have mainly focused on the impact of CEOs' demographic backgrounds such as age, functional background, education, and tenure (e.g., Palmer and Barber 2001; Jensen and Zajac 2004; Bertrand and Schoar 2003; Baker and Mueller 2002). Surprisingly, research that investigates the impact of CEOs' personality traits on their strategic choices remains scant. In addition, given the wide prevalence of narcissism in the general population as well as among corporate executives, there have been recent calls to empirically investigate the "bright" and "dark" sides of CEO narcissism on firms' strategic behavior (e.g., Back et al. 2013). We answer the call of these researchers and explore the impact of CEO narcissism on the firms' rate of new product introductions (NPIs) and conversely, the likelihood of the firms' engaging in marketing controversies.