CEO Narcissism and Innovation Strategy: Evidence from CEOs Successions
We build on insights from upper echelon theory and personality psychology, to suggest that highly narcissist CEOs tend to follow more aggressive innovation strategies than their less narcissist counterparts. We examine different dimensions of innovation strategies led by CEOs with different degrees of narcissism, namely R&D investments, technological acquisitions, and introduction of new products. We examine these decisions using CEO succession events in innovative industries including drugs, medical devices, hardware, and semiconductor from 1998 to 2008. Results provide considerable support to our hypotheses and highlight the importance of executive narcissism in the pursuit of aggressive innovation strategies. Our study makes contributions to literature on executive personality and strategic decision making and has implications for managers and corporate boards.