Strategic recipes in cyclical industries: Integrating imprinting and learning perspectives
研究CEO在行业下行期采取反周期投资策略的成因，发现早期职业生涯经历下行期的CEO更倾向实施该策略，且成功经验会强化这一印记效应，基于美国半导体行业305位CEO的数据验证。
Where does a CEO’s management style come from? We explore a CEO’s development of a strategic recipe called counter-cyclical strategy, where CEOs undertake proactive investments during industry downcycles in preparation for subsequent upcycles to strengthen their firms’ competitive positions. We theorize that CEOs who began their careers during downcycles are more likely to implement counter-cyclical strategies when they encounter subsequent industry downcycles. This imprinting effect is reinforced through the CEO’s accumulation of contrarian experiences, i.e., positive performance outcomes of the CEO’s counter-cyclical strategies. Empirical evidence from the entire career histories of 305 unique CEOs since 1977 and their counter-cyclical investment records in the US semiconductor industry between 2001 and 2020 supports the hypotheses. This study reconciles managerial career imprinting perspectives with managerial experiences and learning in a fast-changing, cyclical industry.