Multi-CEOs: A Legitimacy Perspective on Executives Leading Multiple Firms
研究了同时担任多家公司CEO的“多重CEO”现象，通过分析四个案例，揭示其如何克服合法性挑战而出现和维持，提出了一个合法性过程模型。
The chief executive officer (CEO) is critical to a firm’s success and the CEO position is known to be extremely demanding. It is therefore surprising that some individuals are “multi-CEOs,” that is, they hold the CEO position in multiple firms at the same time. The existence of multi-CEOs is particularly puzzling given that multi-CEO arrangements are often viewed as undesirable and lack legitimacy. We study this phenomenon by analyzing four such multi-CEO arrangements to understand how multi-CEOs emerge and are legitimized. Two overarching theoretical themes emerged from our qualitative analysis. Both relate to the legitimacy challenges of multi-CEOs and the related sources and management strategies used by the CEOs themselves and other actors to gain and maintain legitimacy: (1) the multi-CEO candidate selection and setup and (2) the ongoing management of the multi-CEO arrangement. Against this background, we propose a legitimacy process model of multi-CEO appointments, which illustrates that a lack of cognitive and pragmatic legitimacy of the multi-CEO arrangement can be compensated by a spillover from the active management of the CEO’s strong personal and relational legitimacy.