Management by Originals: The Influence of Inventor CEOs on Firms’ Strategic Decisions

This dissertation examines the influence of inventor chief executive officers (CEOs) on major strategic outcomes, including strategic change, strategic distinctiveness, and stakeholder management. Inventor CEOs are those who hold at least one patent. Approximately 20 percent of firms in the innovation-intensive industries are managed by inventor CEOs. Famous CEOs like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Sanjay Mehrotra, and Mark Zuckerberg are all examples of inventor CEOs. Despite the large presence of inventor CEOs in the business world, the management literature has not examined how they can affect firms’ strategic choices. Building on studies about inventors and strategic leadership, I identify a CEO’s background of being an inventor as an important type of experience that can influence major strategic outcomes. My theory explains why inventor CEOs have the unique attributes of divergent thinking and intrinsic motivation. These unique attributes of inventor CEOs lead them to pursue strategies that are deviant from the past, different from other firms, and responsive to diverse demands of multiple stakeholders. I build on theories about CEO power, firms’ slack resources, and industry dynamism to explain how they moderate the effect of inventor CEOs. Using a longitudinal database of S&P 1500 firms and their CEOs’ inventor background, I empirically test my theoretical predictions. I find that firms managed by inventor CEOs pursue more strategic change compared to other firms. The results of the analysis also show that CEO power and firm slack resources strengthen the influence of inventor CEOs on strategic change.