Who disciples the CFO? An assessment of stakeholder power in corporate governance

Bremer, Diedrich and Lüdtke, Jan-Philipp and Richter, Ansgar and Schäfer, Utz (2009): Who disciples the CFO? An assessment of stakeholder power in corporate governance.

Abstract

We analyze the respective influence of employee and shareholder interests on the dismissal of 89 Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) of major German companies between 1999 and 2006. Drawing on stakeholder-agency theory, we argue that employees wield sufficient power to affect executive replacements. We show that the provision of job security as a proxy for employee interests has a significant effect on the likelihood of CFO dismissal. This effect is independent of the fulfillment of shareholders’ objectives. We conclude that stakeholder groups beyond shareholders exert influence on corporate governance. We argue that executives need to respond to several stakeholder groups simultaneously.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Corporate Governance; Stakeholder influence; Management dismissal
• Subjects: G - Financial Economics > G3 - Corporate Finance and Governance

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