Why Do Firms Appoint CEOs as Outside Directors?

Fisher College of Business Working Paper No. 2008-03-009

Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics Working Paper No. 2008-10

59 Pages Posted: 17 Jul 2008

See all articles by Rüdiger Fahlenbrach

Rüdiger Fahlenbrach

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne; Swiss Finance Institute; European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)

Angie Low

Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University

René M. Stulz

Ohio State University (OSU) - Department of Finance; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)

Date Written: July 2008

Abstract

We examine the determinants of appointments of outside CEOs to boards and how these appointments impact the appointing companies. We find that CEOs are most likely to join boards of large established firms that are geographically close, pursue similar financial and investment policies, and have comparable governance mechanisms to their own firms. It is also more likely that CEOs join firms with low insider ownership and firms with boards that already have other CEO directors. Except for the case of board interlocks, there is no evidence supporting the view that CEO directors have any impact on the appointing firm during their tenure, either positively or negatively. Appointments of CEO directors do not have a significant impact on the appointing firm's operating performance, its decision-making, the compensation of its CEO, or on the monitoring of management by the board. However, operating performance drops significantly for CEO director appointments when the CEO of the appointing firm already sits on the board of the appointee's firm.

Keywords: Director independence, new director appointment, director influence, quiet life

JEL Classification: G30, G34

Suggested Citation

Fahlenbrach, Rüdiger and Low, Angie and Stulz, Rene M., Why Do Firms Appoint CEOs as Outside Directors? (July 2008). Fisher College of Business Working Paper No. 2008-03-009, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics Working Paper No. 2008-10, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1160276 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1160276

Rüdiger Fahlenbrach

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne ( email )

Quartier UNIL-Dorigny
Extranef 211
1015 Lausanne, CH-1015
Switzerland
++41-21-693-0098 (Phone)
++41-21-693-3010 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://https://www.epfl.ch/labs/sfi-rf/

Swiss Finance Institute

c/o University of Geneva
40, Bd du Pont-d'Arve
CH-1211 Geneva 4
Switzerland

European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) ( email )

c/o the Royal Academies of Belgium
Rue Ducale 1 Hertogsstraat
1000 Brussels
Belgium

Angie Low

Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University ( email )

Singapore, 639798
Singapore

Rene M. Stulz (Contact Author)

Ohio State University (OSU) - Department of Finance ( email )

2100 Neil Avenue
Columbus, OH 43210-1144
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.cob.ohio-state.edu/fin/faculty/stulz

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)

c/o the Royal Academies of Belgium
Rue Ducale 1 Hertogsstraat
1000 Brussels
Belgium

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
992
Abstract Views
5,396
Rank
42,511
PlumX Metrics