{"title":"What Role Do Boards Play in Companies with Visionary CEOs?","authors":"XU JIANG, VOLKER LAUX","doi":"10.1111/1475-679X.12514","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div>\n \n <p>Visionary CEOs have strong beliefs about the right course of action for their firms. How should a board of directors that does not necessarily share the visionary CEO's confidence advise and monitor the CEO? We consider a model in which the board can acquire costly information about the firm's optimal strategic direction. The board not only advises the CEO on strategy, but also must approve it, and the CEO exerts effort to implement the strategy. We find that the board gathers less information when the CEO believes more strongly in his vision. Further, depending on the strength of the CEO's belief bias, the board either plays an advisory role, a monitoring role, or a rubberstamping role. The model predicts that in firms that are led by highly visionary CEOs, boards are passive in that they acquire little information and rubberstamp the visionary's proposal. Nevertheless, shareholders prefer the visionary over an unbiased manager in industries in which obtaining information about the correct course of action is difficult and costly.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48414,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Accounting Research","volume":"62 3","pages":"981-1005"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Accounting Research","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1475-679X.12514","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"BUSINESS, FINANCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Visionary CEOs have strong beliefs about the right course of action for their firms. How should a board of directors that does not necessarily share the visionary CEO's confidence advise and monitor the CEO? We consider a model in which the board can acquire costly information about the firm's optimal strategic direction. The board not only advises the CEO on strategy, but also must approve it, and the CEO exerts effort to implement the strategy. We find that the board gathers less information when the CEO believes more strongly in his vision. Further, depending on the strength of the CEO's belief bias, the board either plays an advisory role, a monitoring role, or a rubberstamping role. The model predicts that in firms that are led by highly visionary CEOs, boards are passive in that they acquire little information and rubberstamp the visionary's proposal. Nevertheless, shareholders prefer the visionary over an unbiased manager in industries in which obtaining information about the correct course of action is difficult and costly.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Accounting Research is a general-interest accounting journal. It publishes original research in all areas of accounting and related fields that utilizes tools from basic disciplines such as economics, statistics, psychology, and sociology. This research typically uses analytical, empirical archival, experimental, and field study methods and addresses economic questions, external and internal, in accounting, auditing, disclosure, financial reporting, taxation, and information as well as related fields such as corporate finance, investments, capital markets, law, contracting, and information economics.