Title

CEO long-term orientation and elite university education

Document Type

Article

Date of Original Version

11-1-2020

Abstract

Scholars have advocated the importance of a long-term orientation to the sustainable management of organizations, but few have examined its sources. We develop more fully the concept of long-term orientation, and from the perspective of upper echelons theory, argue and demonstrate that a CEO’s human capital and motivation, as signaled by graduation from a top-ranked university, relates positively to three aspects reflecting long-term orientation. These include strategy in the form of profit reinvestment, R&D expenditure, and honest reporting of earnings; greater exclusive personal commitments of CEO time and finances to the firm; and stewardship of stakeholders such as employees and the community. Our findings are derived from a study of the BoardEx database of 1459 CEOs of US corporations from 2003 to 2013, and are robust to endogeneity concerns and to more inclusive rosters of elite universities.

Publication Title, e.g., Journal

Strategic Organization

Volume

18

Issue

4

Link to Full Text
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