Escaping Zombiness: Does Corporate Governance Have the Elixir of Life?
研究了公司治理如何影响企业进入和脱离僵尸状态，发现董事会独立性有助于僵尸企业复苏并防止健康企业僵尸化，而CEO与董事长分离则阻碍复苏，较长CEO任期帮助健康企业避免僵尸化。
Abstract This study investigates the influence of corporate governance on firms’ transition into and out of zombiness. We underscore the beneficial role of external members in the corporate governance structure and long‐tenured chief executive officers (CEOs) in facilitating access to the external resources that firms need to be successful. Using a sample of European listed firms over the period 2008–2018, we adopt a dynamic view of zombiness by identifying shifts in the state from zombie to non‐zombie and vice versa. The results show that board independence is a twofold panacea against zombies, prompting zombie recovery and preventing healthy firms from becoming zombies. By contrast, leadership independence, materialized by separating the CEO and chairperson roles, hampers the recovery of zombies, probably because the cost of lacking unified leadership may exceed the benefits of external dependence minimization. Finally, the results suggest that longer CEO tenure helps healthy firms avoid zombiness. When considering a broader array of stakeholders, government bailout programmes impair zombie recovery, and stronger trade unions help healthy firms escape zombiness. Overall, this study brings a ray of hope to the zombie problem and provides a better appraisal of when supporting zombies might be worthwhile vis‐à‐vis saving promising firms and bringing them back to life.