Survival of the Fittest? Managerial Cultural Fit and Tenure

63 Pages Posted: 12 Jan 2022 Last revised: 9 Mar 2022

Date Written: March 8, 2022

Abstract

I create proxies for managers' cultural fit using one of the latest machine learning technologies – the sentence embedding model - by analysing 11.5 million speeches in earnings calls. A better cultural fit is significantly and positively correlated with managerial tenure. I demonstrate that the effect of cultural fit on managerial tenure is causal using random survival forests. Firms that hire culturally disruptive managers have lower future market values and performance. The stock market reacts positively to signals that indicate low cultural dispersion within the firm.

Keywords: Corporate Culture, Manager Turnover, Natural-Language-Processing, Machine Learning, BERT, Transformer, Survival Analysis, Causal Machine Learning

JEL Classification: C45, G30

Suggested Citation

Wang, Jinhua, Survival of the Fittest? Managerial Cultural Fit and Tenure (March 8, 2022). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4001438 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4001438

Jinhua Wang (Contact Author)

University of Cambridge ( email )

Cambridge Judge Business School
Trumpington Street
Cambridge
United Kingdom

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