CEO Tenure and CSR: Impact of CEO Self-Interest on Long-Term Investment Decision Making

In this study, we linked the CEO tenure and CSR performance by focusing on CEO’s self-interest seeking behavior correlated with perceived challenges over their tenure and posited the moderating role of corporate governance factors and financial performance in this relationship. Drawing on CEO tenure literature and agency theory, we developed and tested hypotheses using a US firm panel dataset covering more than two decades. Consistent with our prediction, we found that CEO tenure had inverted U-shaped relationship with CSR performance. In specific, CSR performance decreased in early and late tenure while reached the peak in mid tenure of CEO. Also, we found that this relationship was intensified when CEO was an outsider, was board chair, received short-term focused compensation in late tenure, or received long- term focused compensation in early tenure. While the moderating role of corporate governance factors was supported, our prediction on financial performance was not supported. Overall direction of t...