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Taming the black swan: CEO with military experience and organizational resilience

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Abstract

In this study, we explore how chief executive officers (CEOs) with military experience affect the pre-shock risk taking of firms and thus their organizational resilience to exogenous shocks. We find that the military experience of a CEO is negatively related to the risk taking of a firm before a shock. Furthermore, we find that these pre-shock features promote organizational resilience to shocks, as firms led by CEOs with military experience are more robust and less vulnerable to shocks and can recover from shocks rapidly. This effect is partially mediated by the pre-shock risk taking of firms. We test our hypotheses in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic using a sample of 1,033 CEOs of Chinese listed firms from 2017 to 2020.

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Data Availability

The data that support the fndings of this study are available from the authors on reasonable request.

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Funding

This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 72172119); Foundation of Humanities and Social Sciences sponsored by Chinese Ministry of Education (Grant No. 21XJA630010); Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars from Shaanxi province (Grant No. 2022JC-51).

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  1. School of Management, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710049, Shaanxi, China

    Xin Wang & Zhe Zhang

  2. School of Management, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Shaanxi, 710072, China

    Ming Jia

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  1. Xin Wang
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Correspondence to Zhe Zhang.

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Author Zhe Zhang declares that she has no conflict of interest. Author Xin Wang declares that she has no conflict of interest. Author Ming Jia declares that he has no conflict of interest. The work described was original research that has not been published previously, and not under consideration for publication elsewhere, in whole or in part. All the authors listed have approved the manuscript that is enclosed.

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Wang, X., Zhang, Z. & Jia, M. Taming the black swan: CEO with military experience and organizational resilience. Asia Pac J Manag (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10490-023-09941-1

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