How do companies become more purposeful? While the corporate purpose literature has emphasized the influence of founders, little attention has been given to whether, and how, newly appointed CEOs make their organizations more purpose-driven. Drawing on upper echelons theory, we theorize and find that new CEOs with strong ideological value systems infuse purpose into their organizations through changes to their organizations' value statements. To assess purpose, we content-analyze organizational value statements using Schwartz's value theory in a sample of CEO succession events at S&P 1500 firms. We further find that this heightened sense and communication of purpose elicits positive reactions from organizational members, regardless of their own ideologies. The full title is abbreviated while the paper is under review. Please email me for the draft.

Given the many benefits the literature associates with humble leadership, it is theoretically puzzling why firms do not consistently select humble CEOs. We theorize that the perceived executive job demands of an open CEO position shape boards' assessments of how well humble executives fit the role: humble CEOs tend to be hired when job demands are characterized by relational challenges rather than task or performance challenges. Using third-party ratings of humility in a sample of CEO changes at S&P 500 firms, we find support for our theory, answering growing calls to study CEO traits as consequences, not just causes, of organizational circumstances.

Prior literature on female leadership advantage suggests that female CEOs are well suited to championing corporate diversity actions. In this study, however, we integrate theories on identity mobilization tensions and stereotype threat and argue that female CEOs experience identity mobilization tensions, such as the pigeonholing, objectivity, and activism tensions, and stereotype threat when leading corporate diversity actions that make their gender identity salient. Using a sample of CEO succession events from S&P 1500 firms during 2010–2021, we find that the appointment of a female CEO is negatively associated with the presence of Chief Diversity Officers, the presence of female TMT members in significant positions, and participation in gender equality activism. Our study contributes to the literatures on female leadership, corporate diversity initiatives, and managerial discretion.

Organizational stakeholders often look to blame someone for misconduct, and the CEO is a natural target, yet not every CEO faces similar dismissal consequences for similar misconduct. We theorize that narcissistic CEOs amplify the romance of leadership: they attract disproportionate attention and claim credit for success, but that heightened attention backfires when corporate misconduct occurs, as narcissistic CEOs are singled out for blame. In a sample of S&P 1500 firms over 2007–2023, we find that CEO narcissism amplifies the relationship between corporate misconduct and CEO dismissal, with misconduct severity and prior firm performance acting as boundary conditions. The study carries implications for the literatures on organizational misconduct, CEO narcissism, and CEO careers.

Using latent profile analysis on ten of the most commonly studied personality traits in the upper echelons literature, we develop a typology of CEO psychological profiles (including the Independent Hero, Collaborative Champion, Classic Administrator, and Landmark Individualist) and integrate it with the CEO succession literature by examining the industry and firm conditions under which each type is hired. The study contributes to upper echelons theory by explaining why top leaders look the way they do and by capturing the coexistence of multiple traits within CEOs.

Integrating upper echelons theory with the literature on practice diffusion, this study examines how the political ideologies of the CEO and of organizational members affect a firm's adoption and reversal of corporate diversity actions, and how shifts in the national sociopolitical climate triggered by mega-events (social justice movements, adverse political climates) serve as critical contextual factors. I am currently building a novel database tracking symbolic and substantive corporate diversity actions over the past decade.