When More Is Not Enough: Executive Greed and Its Influence on Shareholder Wealth

The concept of greed is one of the oldest social constructs; however, greed as a managerial attribute that affects firm outcomes has yet to attract scholarly attention in management. In this study, we examine the relationship of CEO greed to shareholder wealth. After anchoring greed to familiar constructs in organizational literature, we test our hypotheses on a sample of over 300 publicly traded firms from multiple industries. As predicted, greed has a negative relationship with shareholder return, but this relationship is moderated by the presence of a powerful, independent board, managerial discretion, and CEO tenure. The contributions of this study, which include refining our understanding of self-interest and opportunism, developing the greed construct, and illustrating its impact on shareholder wealth, are intended to open a new line of inquiry in the management literature.