The Effect of Supervisors on Employee Misconduct

Abstract

We study the influence of supervisors on employee misconduct at branches of U.S. financial institutions. Individual supervisor fixed effects explain twice as much variation in branch misconduct as firm fixed effects. Supervisor influence is concentrated in firms that theory suggests are most likely to delegate authority—firms with complex operations, distant branches, and trustworthy supervisors. Supervisors affect misconduct through their personnel decisions, attention to employees with past misbehavior, and ethics and industry rules training. After major internal control improvements, supervisor influence declines. Our results illustrate how supervisors influence misconduct above and beyond firm-level factors. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text. JEL Classifications: D21; D82; G20, L22; L23; M12; M40.