CEO Ideology as an Element of the “Corporate Opportunity Structure” for Social Activists

Gaining Access by Doing Good: The Effect of Sociopolitical Reputation on Firm Participation in Public Policy Making

“…Such an instrument may exist in the form of the political ideology of a new CEO. As Chin et al (2013) document, the more liberal a firm's new CEO's political ideology is, as measured by the partisan makeup of her campaign contributions prior to becoming CEO, the stronger the firm's commitment to CSR is going forward, and as Briscoe et al (2014) show, firms with more liberal CEOs (again measured using lagged campaign contribution data) are more open to social movement challenges that seek to alter firms' sociopolitical practices. However, it is unlikely that policy makers will deny a firm, as an organization, access simply because of the past behavior of a new CEO.…”

Toward a Configurational Perspective on the CEO

“…Scholars investigating how the firm adopts the identity of the CEO will continue to benefit from rich data that have recently been developed and used on CEO traitlike behaviors and dispositions (e.g., Briscoe et al, 2014). We question, though, whether there are more advantages or disadvantages associated with the CEO having such influence over the identity of the firm.…”

“…As a second example, consider the configuration of a CEO who is highly skilled and was selected for the position from a "tournament" perspective (e.g., Connelly et al, 2014), has begun to structure the organization to function more consistently with his or her preferences (i.e., allows the firm to become a reflection of his or her identity; e.g., Briscoe et al, 2014), and has a "promotion" regulatory focus (i.e., focuses on gains and desire for advancement; e.g., Gamache et al, 2015). In this configuration, it may be that this CEO's regulatory focus caused him or her to pursue high growth activities when this CEO was lower in the hierarchy, ultimately resulting in this CEO being selected out of all of the other managers for the position.…”

“…Recent research has suggested that organizations tend to reflect the image of their CEO (e.g., Briscoe, Chin, & Hambrick, 2014;Chin, Hambrick, & Treviño, 2013;Petrenko, Aime, Ridge, & Hill, in press). For example, one study suggests that narcissistic CEOs are more likely to engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities in order to satiate their own need for attention (Petrenko et al).…”

Do CEO Activists Make a Difference? Evidence from a Field Experiment

“…While the bulk of this literature focuses on how CEO preferences affect firm strategy and performance (e.g., Hambrick and Mason 1984;Finkelstein and Hambrick 1996;Waldman andYammarino 1999, Chen, Crossland, andLuo, 2014), our study relates more closely to the few recent articles on the role of CEO political attitudes on business decisions, which find associations between the CEO's attitude and (a) the firm's corporate social responsibility practices (Chin, Hambrick, and Trevino 2013;Di Giuli and Kostovetsky 2014) and (b) employees' tendency to engage in activism (Briscoe, Chin, and Hambrick 2014). Our work supplements this literature by examining the influence of a CEO's political and social attitudes on citizens' attitudes and consumers' purchasing intent.…”