Chair–CEO demographic dissimilarities and firm internationalization

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between chair–chief executive officer (CEO) demographic dissimilarities and firm internationalization.

Design/methodology/approach

The pooled ordinary least squares regression is used on a sample of listed firms in Malaysia from 2013 to 2017. This study considers three demographic dissimilarities between the chair and CEO, i.e. differences in age, educational background and nationality.

Findings

The results reveal that demographic dissimilarities between the chair and CEO, notably differences in nationality, may result in conflicting cognitive styles, which in turn may impede the firms’ ability to expand internationally, as compared to differences in age and educational background. The findings demonstrate the deleterious effects of demographic dissimilarity between these two individuals in the highest echelons on the firms’ internationalization strategy due to poor communication and lack of ability to cooperate when dissatisfaction and conflicts intensify between these corporate elites.

Originality/value

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper makes the first attempt to examine the influence of chair–CEO demographic dissimilarities on firm internationalization. Previous studies examining firms’ internationalization strategy, for the most part, restricted their scope to either the board members or top management team characteristics, but had largely overlooked the nexus between nonexecutive and executive directors through the chair and CEO. A focus on the demographic dissimilarities between the co-leaders of the firm is essential to improve the understanding of the collaboration and rivalry between them, which may affect board effectiveness and firm internationalization.