Symbolic Shareholder Democracy: Toward a Behavioral Understanding of the Role of Shareholder Voting in CEO Dismissals

Alina G. Andrei (), J. (Hans) van Oosterhout () and Steve Sauerwald ()
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Alina G. Andrei: Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, 3062 PA Rotterdam, Netherlands
J. (Hans) van Oosterhout: Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, 3062 PA Rotterdam, Netherlands
Steve Sauerwald: Department of Managerial Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60607

Organization Science, 2023, vol. 34, issue 5, 1736-1758

Abstract: We investigate the effect of expressive shareholder dissent voting, in which shareholders use their votes symbolically to express their discontent with management, on subsequent chief executive officer (CEO) dismissals. Using the routine but highly symbolic executive board discharge proposal voted on at the annual shareholder meetings of German firms, we argue that the board of directors understands these votes as a “vote of confidence in management” that challenges the CEO’s mandate to lead the firm. Arguing that board chairs are uniquely positioned to take up the stance of a steward of the firm and its leadership, we examine how independent and family board chairs moderate the board’s response to expressive voting dissent. Using a sample of German public firms over the period 2008–2015, we find that expressive voting dissent increases the chance of CEO dismissal increasingly with the level of dissent expressed. Contrary to prevailing agency theoretical expectations, we do not find that independent chairs are more responsive to expressive voting dissent, nor that this relationship is strengthened by the degree of minority institutional investor ownership of the firm. Consistent with the symbolic perspective on shareholder voting that we seek to develop, however, we find that family chairs are more likely to lead the board to dismiss the CEO due to the intrinsic disvalue they incur from symbolic leadership legitimacy challenges in their firms, and that the positive effect of having a family chair on the dissent induced chance of CEO dismissal is strengthened by the level of family ownership in the firm.

Keywords: CEO dismissal; expressive dissent voting; behavioral corporate governance; symbolic management; board chair; family ownership; institutional ownership (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:34:y:2023:i:5:p:1736-1758

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