Upper echelons theory suggests that CEO values and personalities impact their actions, driving organizational performance. However, accessing the black box of a CEO’s values and personality is difficult. Numerous studies of senior leaders have informed research on discrete psychological characteristics such as drivers, risk, temporal focus, and emotionality. This study builds on this work by holistically sourcing these psychological characteristics through a LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry & Word Count) text analysis of top-ranked CEO Twitter (X) postings. These data were transformed via a principal component analysis into four distinct psychological profiles, termed by the authors ‘grey flannel suits’, ‘self-actualizers’, ‘empaths’, and ‘greyhounds’. Binary logistic regressions suggested divergence in CEO psychological profile occurrences based on firm size. The profile analysis failed to detect significant top CEO gender differences; however, some gender distinctions were discerned from follow-on t-tests of the profile’s underlying psychological characteristics. The paper concludes with a call for further top management team psychological profile-informed research.

By integrating role theory and social identity theory, this study examines the differential effects of organizational identification of the chief executive officer (CEO) and the chief financial officer (CFO) on corporate philanthropy. We argue that CEO organizational identification can positively affect corporate philanthropy, whereas the opposite holds for CFO organizational identification. This is because the CEO and the CFO have varying attitudes about corporate philanthropy owing to their different role expectations; thus, those who identify strongly with their organizations would act for the best interests of the firm. Moreover, because the beliefs of top executives are probably influenced by those of other executives, we further explore the interaction between the CEO and the CFO. We propose that the positive influence of CEO organizational identification on corporate philanthropy will be weakened by CFO organizational identification, and the moderating effect of CFO organizational identification will become stronger when the CEO and the CFO have opposite genders or when the CFO has ownership. From a sample of 880 publicly traded firms in China, we found support for our hypotheses. Our study can contribute to the corporate philanthropy literature and research on executive organizational identification by highlighting the importance of executive roles and their interactions.

Research on top management team (TMT) diversity suggests that diverse backgrounds improve technological exploration. However, this diversity may also cause demographic faultlines that break a team into subgroups and undermine team performance, and the status difference between CEO and top managers may change inter-subgroup dynamics. We predicted that TMT faultline had an inverted U-shape relationship with technological exploration. Further, we predicted that the effects of TMT faultline were more prominent when the CEO is in the minority subgroup than when the CEO was in the majority subgroup. Using a longitudinal sample from the US IT services industry, the results found that TMT faultline exhibited an inverted U-shape relationship with technological exploration only when the CEO was in the minority subgroup, and such relationship disappeared when the CEO was in the majority subgroup.

This paper examines how the characteristics of CEOs' social networks, such as the size of the network and the strength of the ties, influence strategic flexibility from a strategic change perspective. External social networks can affect strategic flexibility positively. Previous experience with strategic change will influence external social networks differently, in ways that have repercussions for strategic flexibility. The data were gathered from surveys completed by the CEOs of 203 Spanish firms. The methodology used is regression analysis. We observe that external social networks affect strategic flexibility positively, primarily through the greater size of the networks. We also find that the effects vary if previously the organization is involved in a process of strategic change.

The number of corporate apologies has increased dramatically during the past decade. This article delves into the ethics of apologies offered by chief executive officers (CEOs). It examines ways in which public apologies on the part of a representative (CEO) of a corporate body (the firm) differ from both private, interpersonal apologies, on the one hand, and nation-state/collective apologies, on the other. The article then seeks to ground ethically desirable elements of a corporate apology in the nature or essence of the corporate apology itself. It explores the largely ignored roles played by the speaker’s ethos and audience pathos in genuine or ethical apologies and suggests that attention needs to be paid to the problems posed by “role contamination,” context, and other overlooked factors. The reception by the actual audience of a given apology is a highly contingent matter. Ethicists should concentrate, therefore, on what makes a proffered apology, in principle, trustworthy and not merely efficacious for a given audience.

Based on twenty-five semi-structured interviews with company chairmen, we were able to establish that there is resounding support for the split of the positions of chairman and CEO. In addition, chairmen play a key role in making the board a success, partly by establishing the right tone and procedure at the top. The chairmen we interviewed believe that the quality of boards has improved over the last ten years and that directors take their responsibilities more seriously. However, the drive for better corporate governance, though generally welcome, has in some respects become counterproductive.