This study examines the performance consequences of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) successions, focusing on the types of board chairs and firm ownership structures. While CEO successions can bring adaptation benefits and performance gains through strategic realignment, they can also cause disruption costs and performance losses by disturbing stakeholder relationships. We examine how the presence of a predecessor CEO or an independent individual as board chair affects postsuccession performance differently depending on the level of family control. Our analysis of a panel dataset of S&P 1500 firms from 2003 to 2022 and a series of robustness tests provide strong support for our predictions. We found that with increasing family control, predecessor CEOs as board chairs have a more positive effect on postsuccession performance, while the opposite holds true for independent board chairs. Further, within family-controlled firms, the effect of predecessor retention is stronger for outside than inside CEO successions. Our findings expand CEO succession and board chair research by demonstrating that the value of a board chair type after a CEO succession depends on a firm’s ownership structure, particularly the degree of family control.

中文翻译：

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所有权很重要：家族控制权如何影响 CEO 继任后董事会主席类型的价值


本研究考察了首席执行官 （CEO） 继任对绩效的影响，重点关注董事会主席的类型和公司所有权结构。虽然 CEO 继任可以通过战略调整带来适应效益和绩效提升，但它们也可能通过扰乱利益相关者关系来造成中断成本和绩效损失。我们研究了前任 CEO 或独立人士担任董事会主席的存在如何根据家族控制水平对继任后的表现产生不同的影响。我们对 2003 年至 2022 年标准普尔 1500 指数公司的面板数据集的分析以及一系列稳健性测试为我们的预测提供了有力支持。我们发现，随着家族控制权的增加，前任首席执行官担任董事会主席对继任后的绩效产生更积极的影响，而独立董事会主席则相反。此外，在家族控制的企业中，保留前任对外部 CEO 继任的影响比对内部 CEO 继任的影响更大。我们的研究结果通过证明 CEO 继任后董事会主席类型的价值取决于公司的所有权结构，尤其是家族控制的程度，扩展了 CEO 继任和董事会主席研究。