مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد فضای اخلاقی در راس سازمان و اعتقادات مذهبی مدیر عاملان – الزویر ۲۰۱۹

۱- Introduction

۲- Sample and descriptive statistics

۳- Empirical results

۴- Additional analyses

۵- Conclusion

References

Abstract

Diverging from recent research that focuses on the effect of community religion on corporate outcomes, we study how top executives’ personal religiosity affects corporate transparency. Using educational experience in church-affiliated colleges as a proxy for CEOs’ religiosity, we show that firms with religious CEOs are associated with significantly less earnings management than firms with non-religious CEOs. Our results are robust to using matched samples and a difference-in-differences analysis based on voluntary CEO turnovers. The effect of CEO religiosity on earnings management is more pronounced when firms use more equity-based CEO compensation or when firms face higher operating cash flows volatility, and the effect is weaker in the post-SOX period. We also find evidence that firms with religious CEOs are less likely to engage in real earnings management. Taken together, our findings suggest an important role of CEOs’ religious beliefs in shaping corporate policies.

Introduction

The role of religion in economic activities is an important issue and has long been the focus of a large body of literature. The seminal work by Weber (1905) suggests that the life style arising from Protestantism plays a decisive role in the creation of modern prosperity. Recent studies show that religion influences personal behavior and economic development.1 However, it remains largely unclear how individuals’ religious beliefs impact corporate behavior. In fact, Lagace (2001) states that how individuals combine personal religious values with business life is “one of the great uncharted areas.” Our study examines how managers’ religious beliefs affect corporate transparency. Anecdotal evidence suggests that executives’ religiosity influences their decision making in the corporate setting. Indra Nooyi, the former chairman and CEO of PepsiCo and a devout Hindu, has drawn upon her religious beliefs to foster a culture of diversity and inclusion at the soft-drink manufacturer (Rossi, 2014). John H. Tyson, the then-CEO of Tyson Foods and now the chairman of the board, is a passionate Christian who revived the company’s Chaplaincy program that employs more than 100 chaplains company-wide to provide compassionate pastoral care to team members and their families. John Tyson once said, “My faith is just an ongoing evolution, trying to understand what faith in the marketplace looks like, giving people permission to live their faith seven days a week.” Despite the anecdotal evidence, there exists little research on how religious beliefs of top management influence firm behavior, perhaps due to a lack of data on individual’s religious adherence.