CEO Characteristics: Does Industry Matter?

Abstract

This study examined the relationships between a comprehensive set of industry conditions and CEO characteristics utilizing data from a broad range of U.S. manufacturing industries. Pooled cross-sectional time series analyses indicated that industry conditions played a limited role in explaining variations in CEO firm tenure, educational level, functional background, and functional heterogeneity. Results of subgroup regression analyses indicated that although high performers appeared to align the studied CEO characteristics more closely to industry conditions than low performers, differences between the industry coefficients in the two groups are generally small.