Inventor CEOs and Firm Innovation
Document Type
Article
Source of Publication
SSRN Electronic Journal
Publication Date
1-1-2018
Abstract
Using a novel, manually-collected dataset, we find that firms whose chief executive officer (CEO) is an inventor experience significantly better innovation outcomes, as measured by patents and future citations. We obtain these results in models with firm fixed effects, in difference-in-difference analysis of transitioning CEOs that controls for the CEO fixed effects, and among firms with founder CEOs. Firms led by an inventor CEO also exhibit greater tolerance for failure as indicated by a greater number of both highly cited and uncited patents, and engage more in explorative search strategies that exploit new technological trajectories. Stock market, however, seems unable to fully capture the positive impact of inventor CEOs on future innovation: firms whose CEO transitions to be an inventor experience positive abnormal stock returns, especially during the early years following the transition.
DOI Link
ISSN
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Disciplines
Business
Recommended Citation
Bostan, Ibrahim and Mian, G. Mujtaba, "Inventor CEOs and Firm Innovation" (2018). All Works. 2120.
https://zuscholars.zu.ac.ae/works/2120
Indexed in Scopus
no
Open Access
yes
Open Access Type
Green: A manuscript of this publication is openly available in a repository