Seminar Calendar, Accounting and Law
Social Alignment in the CEO Market: Evidence from Two-sided Matching
26 Sep 2025 | 2:30 p.m. — 4:00 p.m.
KK 315
SPEAKER
Prof. Chen Li
Assistant Professor of Accounting
New York University – Shanghai
ABSTRACT
This paper empirically investigates how firm-CEO mission-alignment in social activities impacts CEO hiring, examining its significance alongside traditional skill-based complementarities that generate match-specific productivity. Leveraging data on prosocial activities of public firms and CEOs from 2007 to 2020, we estimate a two-sided matching model and find that prosocial mission-alignment plays a vital role in firm-CEO matching, comparable to the well-documented skill-based synergies. Firms in favor of prosociality match exhibit improved social ratings and ESG scores, while experiencing diminished financial performance.
