CEO SUCCESSION AND STOCKHOLDER REACTION: THE INFLUENCE OF ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT AND EVENT CONTENT

In this article, we construe chief executive officer (CEO) succession events as instances of organizational change. Predictions of positive, negative, or inconsequential outcomes of succession events are contingent on two features of organizational context-presuccession organizational performance and organizational size-and three elements of the content of a succession event: the force initiating the change in CEO, the predecessor's disposition, and the origin of the new CEO. We found that poor presuccession performance was associated with boardinitiation and predecessor departure. Stockholder reactions were positive when presuccession performance was poor and either boards or, to a lesser extent, CEOs initiated successions. Successions that occurred when performance had been good resulted in negative consequences, as did those caused by CEO disability. However, most successions studied were customary retirements associated with no significant stockholder reaction. CEO succession events are of central concern in organization theory. They are universal-if organizations survive long enough, they must experience succession-and they have provided a means for assessing the efficacy of leaders in shaping organizational fortunes by demarcating eras of stewardship. After some decades of research, however, scholars have not reached consensus on the general question of whether leaders make a difference. Instead, the literature on succession has led to a focus on specifying conditions under which it is more or less possible for individuals newly placed in the seat of legitimate authority to influence important organizational outcomes. Under certain circumstances, new CEOs can have palpable effects on

[1]  E. Schein Organizational Culture and Leadership , 1991 .

[2]  Kae H. Chung,et al.  Stockholder Reactions to CEO Changes in Large Corporations , 1989 .

[3]  Randolph P. Beatty,et al.  Ceo change and firm performance in large corporations: Succession effects and manager effects , 1987 .

[4]  D. Hambrick,et al.  Managerial discretion: A bridge between polar views of organizational outcomes. , 1987 .

[5]  Richard F. Vancil,et al.  Passing the Baton: Managing the Process of CEO Succession , 1987 .

[6]  P. R. Chandy,et al.  Management Turnover Through Deaths of Key Executives: Effects on Investor Wealth , 1986 .

[7]  Jitendra V. Singh,et al.  Organizational Change and Organizational Mortality. , 1986 .

[8]  Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld Heroes in collision: Chief executive retirement and the parade of future leaders , 1986 .

[9]  S. Friedman Succession systems in large corporations: Characteristics and correlates of performance , 1986 .

[10]  Jeffrey Pfeffer,et al.  Administrative Succession and Organizational Performance: How Administrator Experience Mediates the Succession Effect , 1986 .

[11]  Dan R. Dalton,et al.  Organizational performance as an antecedent of inside/outside chief executive succession: An empirical assessment. , 1985 .

[12]  Kenneth B. Schwartz,et al.  Executive Succession in Failing Firms , 1985 .

[13]  E. A. Dyl,et al.  Reinganum on Management Succession , 1985 .

[14]  L. G. Hrebiniak,et al.  Organizational Adaptation: Strategic Choice and Environmental Determinism. , 1985 .

[15]  Nandu J. Nagarajan,et al.  An analysis of the stock price reaction to sudden executive deaths: Implications for the managerial labor market , 1985 .

[16]  Jerold B. Warner,et al.  Using daily stock returns: The case of event studies , 1985 .

[17]  Marc R. Reinganum The Effect of Executive Succession on Stockholder Wealth , 1985 .

[18]  M. Hannan,et al.  Structural Inertia and Organizational Change , 1984 .

[19]  Glenn R. Carroll,et al.  Dynamics of Publisher Succession in Newspaper Organizations , 1984 .

[20]  Dan R. Dalton,et al.  Inside/Outside Succession and Organizational Size: The Pragmatics of Executive Replacement , 1983 .

[21]  A. V. D. Ven,et al.  Central perspectives and debates in organization theory. , 1983 .

[22]  Michael T. Hannan,et al.  Niche Width and the Dynamics of Organizational Populations , 1983, American Journal of Sociology.

[23]  W. Starbuck Organizations as Action Generators , 1983 .

[24]  M. C. Brown,et al.  Administrative Succession and Organizational Performance: The Succession Effect. , 1982 .

[25]  Nancy Weiner,et al.  A Model of Corporate Performance as a Function of Environmental, Organizational, and Leadership Influences , 1981 .

[26]  Gil E. Gordon,et al.  Critical factors in leadership succession , 1981 .

[27]  David R. James,et al.  Profit Constraints on Managerial Autonomy: Managerial Theory and the Unmaking of the Corporation President , 1981 .

[28]  Danny Miller,et al.  Momentum and Revolution in Organizational Adaptation , 1980 .

[29]  Jeffrey Pfeffer,et al.  Effects of ownership and performance on executive tenure in U , 1980 .

[30]  Barry M. Staw,et al.  Administrative Turnover as a Response to Unmanaged Organizational Interdependence , 1980 .

[31]  Jeffrey Pfeffer,et al.  Average Tenure of Academic Department Heads: The Effects of Paradigm, Size, and Departmental Demography. , 1980 .

[32]  Michael Patrick Allen,et al.  Managerial Succession and Organizational Performance: A Recalcitrant Problem Revisited. , 1979 .

[33]  J. Pfeffer,et al.  The External Control of Organizations. , 1978 .

[34]  Dennis E. Logue,et al.  Foundations of Finance. , 1977 .

[35]  W. Ouchi The Relationship Between Organizational Structure and Organizational Control. , 1977 .

[36]  M. Hannan,et al.  The Population Ecology of Organizations , 1977, American Journal of Sociology.

[37]  Jeffrey Pfeffer,et al.  The Ambiguity of Leadership , 1977 .

[38]  Marshall W. Meyer Leadership and Organizational Structure , 1975, American Journal of Sociology.

[39]  William A. McEachern,et al.  Managerial control and performance , 1975 .

[40]  Jeffrey Pfeffer,et al.  Executive Recruitment and the Development of Interfirm Organizations , 1973 .

[41]  Warren B. Brown,et al.  Successor Type and Organizational Change in the Corporate Enterprise. , 1972 .

[42]  S. Lieberson,et al.  Leadership and organizational performance: a study of large corporations. , 1972, American sociological review.

[43]  E. Fama EFFICIENT CAPITAL MARKETS: A REVIEW OF THEORY AND EMPIRICAL WORK* , 1970 .

[44]  E. Fama,et al.  The Adjustment of Stock Prices to New Information , 1969 .

[45]  James D. Thompson Organizations in Action , 1967 .

[46]  M. Zald Who Shall Rule? A Political Analysis of Succession in a Large Welfare Organization , 1965 .

[47]  William A. Gamson,et al.  Scapegoating in Baseball , 1964, American Journal of Sociology.

[48]  O. Grusky,et al.  Managerial Succession and Organizational Effectiveness , 1963, American Journal of Sociology.

[49]  L. Kriesberg Careers, Organization Size, and Succession , 1962, American Journal of Sociology.

[50]  Robert H. Guest,et al.  Managerial Succession in Complex Organizations , 1962, American Journal of Sociology.

[51]  O. Grusky Corporate Size, Bureaucratization, and Managerial Succession , 1961, American Journal of Sociology.

[52]  Richard O. Carlson Succession and Performance Among School Superintendents , 1961 .

[53]  A. Gouldner Patterns Of Industrial Bureaucracy , 1954 .