5/17/2023 — The executive labor market (ELM) is a topic of interest that spans several academic fields. The outcomes of the ELM, including executive selection, succession, and compensation, are important considerations as they influence executive decision making and other organizational outcomes. Yet, a comprehensive framework of ELM dynamics currently does not exist. To address this shortcoming, we reviewed the existing literature using five fundamental questions: (1) What executive jobs are available? (2) Who is available to fill executive jobs, and what is valued on the ELM? (3) Who signals interest in the executive jobs? (4) Who gets offered/accepts the executive job, and what is the agreed-upon compensation? (5) How do status and social capital influence ELM outcomes? By answering these questions, our review provides a framework for integrating existing research on the ELM while suggesting avenues for future research.

• KEYWORD(S):
• strategy and entrepreneurship

9/15/2023 — In contrast to the equivocal findings in academic research, “the business case for diversity” is the dominant rhetorical paradigm for how U.S. corporations debate actions and policies around racial/ethnic diversity. In this paper, we conduct an empirical test of the paradigm by gathering data on the race/ethnicity of the individuals shown on the leadership pages of S&P 500 firms’ websites as of mid-2011, 2014, 2017, 2020 and 2021, and then determining if any of nine measures of the racial/ethnic diversity of these executives reliably predict cross-sectional variation in any of six measures of their firms’ financial performance over the next fiscal year. We do not find reliable evidence that they do.

• KEYWORD(S):
• accounting
• race
• strategy and entrepreneurship