Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

acceptedVersion

Publication Date

11-2019

Abstract

Mortality salience—the awareness of the inevitability of death—is often traumatic. However, it can also be associated with a range of positive, self-transcendent cognitive responses, such as a greater desire to help others, contribute to society, and make a more meaningful contribution in one’s life and career. In this study, we provide evidence of a link between chief executive officer (CEO) mortality salience—triggered by the death of a director at the same firm—and a subsequent increase in firm-level prosocial behavior or corporate social responsibility (CSR). We further show that this core relationship is amplified in situations where the death of the director is likely to have been especially salient (i.e., the director was appointed within the CEO’s tenure, or the death was sudden/expected). In supplementary analyses, we find suggestive evidence of increased CEO prosociality in other professional domains as well as evidence that prosociality seems to be preferentially directed toward ingroups.

Keywords

Decision making, leadership, strategy, behaviour

Discipline

Corporate Finance | Human Resources Management | Leadership Studies

Research Areas

Corporate Reporting and Disclosure

Publication

Management Science

Volume

66

Issue

7

First Page

3142

Last Page

3161

ISSN

0025-1909

Identifier

10.1287/mnsc.2019.3348

Publisher

INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences)

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2019.3348

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