HEC Paris study links CEO influence to a 30% difference in firms' performances in CSR

Large-scale study links CEO influence to a 30% difference in firms’ performances in the areas of social responsibility – a finding that informs the debate over the power and leeway of senior executives in general and for corporate social responsibility in specific.

The so-called “CEO effect” is hard to measure in reality, because of the confluence of other factors – cash flow, external pressures, market conditions and so on – that can also shape and determine results.

But new research just published in the The Academy of Management by Georg Wernicke, HEC Paris Assistant Professor of Strategy & Business Policy and member of the school’s Society & Organizations Institute, suggests that CEOs do in fact hold considerable sway – for better or for worse, writes Wealth and Society.