Whom to dismiss? CEO celebrity and management dismissal

Based on the power dynamics in strategic leadership ranks, this study examines whether chief executive officer (CEO) celebrity serves as a source of CEO power and empirically investigates its role in management dismissal. In the spirit of scapegoating theory, this study proposes that CEO celebrity weakens the likelihood of CEO dismissal but strengthens the likelihood of executive dismissal in the face of poor firm performance. This study goes further to explore the previously unexamined question of “whom to dismiss” and argues that less powerful non-board executives as opposed to board executives are more likely to be handy scapegoats of power dynamics. The data from Korean public firms in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis largely support such a scapegoating hypothesis.