CEO founder status and firm financial performance

Abstract

Founders create their organizations, yet are often expected to eventually become liabilities to these same organizations. Past empirical research on the relationship between CEO founder status (i.e., is the CEO also the founder?) and firm performance has yielded inconsistent results. This study of 94 founder- and nonfounder-managed firms finds that founder management has no main effect on stock returns over a 3-year holding period, but that firm size and firm age moderate the CEO founder status–firm performance relationship. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.