Career Imprinting: An Evidence of CEOs' Earnings Management Decisions

This paper examines whether there is a presence of behavioral consistency in CEOs' earnings management decisions. Based on insights from the career imprint theory, we propose that firms are more likely to engage in earnings management when their newly appointed CEOs come from firms that were also involved in such practices. Empirical support was found by analyzing a dataset that tracks 855 CEO transitions. Additionally, we find that the strength of this effect is influenced by factors such as the age of the CEO when they joined their previous firm, the length of their tenure at the previous firm, the size of the former firm, and the strength of corporate governance in their current firm. Furthermore, additional tests support the idea of “moral cleansing” behavior in CEOs, but not the “slippery slope” mechanism.