Do narcissistic CEOs rock the boat?

Tom Aabo, Frederik Hoejland and Jesper Pedersen

Review of Behavioral Finance, 2020, vol. 13, issue 2, 141-164

Abstract: Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of narcissistic supply for the association between CEO narcissism and corporate risk taking. Design/methodology/approach - The authors investigate a sample of 281 non-financial S&P 1500 firms and a corresponding 457 CEOs in the 10-yr period 2006–2015. Findings - The association between CEO narcissism and corporate risk taking depends on the admiration, attention, and affirmation of own superiority (“narcissistic supply”) that the CEO receives given her/his current position. Thus, a narcissistic CEO with an insufficient narcissistic supply (small firm/small compensation) will crave for more and take more risks (“rock the boat”) while a narcissistic CEO with a sufficient narcissistic supply (large firm/large compensation) will protect the status quo and be reluctant to take new risks. Specifically, the authors find that a change from a slightly narcissistic CEO to a strongly narcissistic CEO, for positions entailing limited (abundant) narcissistic supply, is associated with an increase (a decrease) in corporate risk of 6%–8% (11%–27%). Originality/value - Previous research indicates a positive association between CEO narcissism and corporate risk taking in specific domains such as M&A and R&D activities. This paper provides a novel contribution to the existing literature by identifying and assessing the important role of narcissistic supply for the association between CEO narcissism and corporate risk taking in general.

Keywords: Behavioral corporate finance; Corporate risk; CEO narcissism; Narcissistic supply (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:rbfpps:rbf-09-2019-0118

DOI: 10.1108/RBF-09-2019-0118

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Behavioral Finance is currently edited by Professor Gulnur Muradoglu

More articles in Review of Behavioral Finance from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().