Date of Award
5-11-2025
Date Published
June 2025
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Management
Advisor(s)
Ravi Dharwadkar
Abstract
This dissertation bridges the corporate governance research and behavioral strategy research to examine how the interplay between governance mechanisms and managerial cognition and behavior shapes firm strategy and performance. The dissertation consists of three empirical essays. The first essay examines whether the greater monitoring intensity and informational advantages of concentrated institutional ownership curb CEO overconfidence. By situating CEO overconfidence within an agency context, this study highlights the importance of concentrated institutional ownership for curtailing CEO overconfidence and sheds light on the multiple channels through which these owners monitor. The second essay uses the behavioral theory of the firm and agency theory perspectives to investigate the interplay between employed independent directors’ primary and secondary job demands and the implications for board bandwidth. The findings suggest that negative performance feedback at a director’s primary employer could reduce board bandwidth at their secondary employer. This bandwidth reduction is offset by retired directors lacking primary employment but not exacerbated by overboarded directors with multiple secondary directorships at the secondary employer. The third essay revisits a well-established relationship in the behavioral theory of the firm literature: negative performance feedback increases R&D search. Replication and extension reveal that underperformance is negatively associated with R&D search when alternative measures of R&D activity are used. The study identifies factors confounding previous results and shows that both accounting standards and governance constraints have important implications for the previous findings regarding performance feedback and R&D search. By integrating the insights from both fields and examining these constraints, this dissertation contributes to both corporate governance and behavioral strategy research and offers a more nuanced and realistic understanding of how governance and managerial cognition and behavior jointly influence firm strategies and performance.
Access
Open Access
Recommended Citation
Huang, Yi, "Essays on Corporate Governance and Behavioral Strategy" (2025). Dissertations - ALL. 2126.
https://surface.syr.edu/etd/2126
