A new study finds overconfident CEOs are less likely to delegate responsibilities to underlings, particularly in settings that involve complex transactions – such as hammering out the details of high-stakes deals.
“Organizations have only gotten more complex over time, often operating in multiple countries across many different sectors,” says Jared Smith, co-author of a paper on the work and a professor of finance in North Carolina State University’s Poole College of Management. “As a result, it is important for modern companies to bring more voices to the table. Involving more people who have more varied expertise and experiences can be valuable in helping companies navigate a complex business environment.
“In other words, delegation is an important tool for CEOs,” says Smith. “It can help them bring in expert voices while also freeing up their own time to tackle the multitude of issues facing any enterprise. We wanted to see whether there is a relationship between overconfidence in CEOs and their willingness to delegate – because that may have meaningful implications for their organization.”
To explore this issue, the researchers focused on 3,690 mergers and acquisitions by publicly traded companies between 2000 and 2019. The researchers looked only at transactions with a value of at least $50 million and that constituted at least 1% of the acquiring company’s equity.
Those mergers and acquisitions involved 1,634 CEOs. The researchers used an established technique to assess the confidence of those CEOs based on how the executives made use of their stock options. And to assess the extent to which those CEOs were willing to delegate responsibility, the researchers looked at press releases and news articles about the 3,690 mergers and acquisitions (M&As).
“In general, if anyone other than a C-suite executive is mentioned in these releases, it strongly suggests that the person who was mentioned played a meaningful role in the M&As,” Smith says.
The researchers also looked at “background of the merger” documents that acquiring companies submit to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which detail all relevant meetings that took place between companies while arranging the relevant transaction.
“We found that if someone other than an executive was mentioned in a press release or news article, that person was very likely involved in meetings that took place during the M&A process,” Smith says. “This helps validate the use of news releases and articles as a tool for determining whether an executive is willing to delegate responsibility.”
The researchers found that 41% of the CEOs in their data set were overconfident. And when the researchers compared the behavior of overconfident CEOs to the behavior of the overall group, they found that overconfident CEOs were 10-15% less likely than average to delegate responsibility.
The researchers also found that the relationship between overconfidence and delegation behavior varied quite a bit depending on the nature of the M&A.
“For example, when a firm was acquiring a company in an industry sector it was not previously involved in, overconfident CEOs were even less likely to delegate responsibility,” Smith says. “This is notable given that these deals involve unfamiliar industries, where outside expertise is more likely to be relevant.”
However, the most surprising result was also the most statistically powerful result.
“We found that the more segments – or business arms – the acquiring firm had, the less likely overconfident CEOs were to delegate responsibility,” says Smith. “This is remarkable, because theory suggests that the more complex the CEO’s own information environment is, the more likely they are to benefit from getting outside expertise.
“It is important for leadership to be confident in their own abilities,” says Smith. “But our study suggests that executives who are overconfident are less likely to delegate responsibility to the people on their team – and that may affect the C-suite’s ability to navigate complex business situations.
“It would be interesting to see how this may be reflected in post-merger performance – that’s an area for future research.”
The paper, “Leave it to Me: Overconfident CEOs’ Lower Propensity to Delegate Acquisition Responsibility,” is published open access in the Journal of Management Studies. The paper was co-authored by Matthew Josefy of Indiana University and Daniel Greene of Clemson University.