THE SHACKLES OF CEO CELEBRITY: … · broadly, the question remains: Why does CEO celebrity, which the executive labor market seems to value, ... age our CEO in their quest for celebrity?

Q Academy of Management Review2018, Vol. 43, No. 3, 419–444.https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2016.0064

THE SHACKLES OF CEO CELEBRITY: SOCIOCOGNITIVE ANDBEHAVIORAL ROLE CONSTRAINTS ON “STAR” LEADERS

JEFFREY B. LOVELACEUniversity of Virginia

JONATHAN BUNDYArizona State University

DONALD C. HAMBRICKThe Pennsylvania State University

TIMOTHY G. POLLOCKThe Pennsylvania State University and University of Tennessee–Knoxville

We set forth a new theory for understanding the consequences of CEO celebrity. Thefulcrum of our theory is the reality that CEOs attain celebrity because they are cast intospecific archetypes, rather than for their general achievements. We present a typologyof common celebrity CEO archetypes (creator, transformer, rebel, savior) and then detaila model highlighting the consequences associated with attaining celebrity of a giventype. These consequences include an array of sociocognitive outcomes, which, in turn,constrain celebrity CEOs to those behaviors associated with their particular celebrityarchetype. The sociocognitive outcomes’ main effects are moderated by the role in-tensity of the specific archetype, the CEO’s degree of narcissism, and the temporal arc(rate of ascent and duration) of celebrity. Finally, we argue that the effects of CEOcelebrity on firm performance are contingent on the continuity of external and internalcontextual conditions. If conditions change appreciably, the celebrity CEO’s rigiditiesbecome severe liabilities, explaining the documented tendency for CEO celebrity tobring about, on average, unfavorable firm outcomes.

Catering to the public’s thirst for the personifi-cation of cultural ideals, journalists and mediaenterprises create celebrities in various realms ofhuman endeavor (Boorstin, 1961; Gamson, 1994;Rein, Kotler, & Stoller, 1987). There are not onlycelebrity entertainers and athletes but also ce-lebrity chefs, lawyers, scientists, and, of course,celebrity business leaders, or chief executive of-ficers (CEOs). The current eraof the celebrityCEO,at least in the United States, likely started withLee Iacocca ofChrysler in the late 1970s (Khurana,2002) and has continued with the elevation ofnumerous executives to the level of householdnames, if not outright stars: Jack Welch (GE),Herb Kelleher (Southwest Airlines), Bill Gates

(Microsoft), Steve Jobs (Apple), Meg Whitman(eBay), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Mark Zuckerberg(Facebook), and Elon Musk (Tesla and SpaceX), toname a few. As these examples suggest, beyondsatisfying our desire to live vicariously throughtheir exploits, celebrity CEOs often control firmsthat have major influences on society and peo-ples’ lives.The rise of the celebrity CEO has understand-

ably drawn attention from management scholars(e.g., Graffin, Pfarrer, & Hill, 2012; Hayward,Rindova, & Pollock, 2004; Wade, Porac, Pollock, &Graffin, 2006). Some of their work has focused onthe antecedents of CEO celebrity. For example,recognizing that CEOs are not independent op-erators, researchers have explored the tendencyto ascribe organizational outcomes to individualleaders (Finkelstein, Hambrick, & Cannella, 2009;Meindl, Ehrlich, & Dukerich, 1985), as well as thedistinctive executive attributes and behaviorsthat contribute to CEOs’ social acclaim (Haywardet al., 2004). As we will discuss, celebrity does notaccrue strictly, or even primarily, from a CEO’s

We thank John Busenbark, Guoli Chen, Craig Crossland,Cindy Devers, Patrick Haack, Vilmos Misangyi, Mike Pfarrer,andMikeWithers for helpful comments on earlier drafts of thismanuscript. We would also like to thank participants from the2016 Reputation Symposium hosted by the Oxford UniversityCentre forCorporateReputation. Finally,wearegrateful to ourassociate editor and three reviewers for their insights andsupport throughout this process.

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https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2016.0064

objective performance record. Indeed, correlationsbetween prior or current organizational perfor-mance and indicators of celebrity are modest(Milbourn, 2003; Wade et al., 2006).

Researchers have also considered the conse-quences of CEO celebrity for both the executiveand the firm. Studies have shown that celebritybrings considerable benefits to CEOs and theirtop management team (TMT) members. Uponbecoming celebrities, CEOs receive sizable payboosts, are buffered from dismissal, and areinvited to join outside boards (Malmendier &Tate, 2009; Wade et al., 2006). Further, thesebenefits spill over to those around celebrityCEOs. For example, their TMT members alsoreceive pay increases, and these individuals’chances of becoming CEOs at other companiesare increased (Graffin, Wade, Porac, & McNamee,2008).

The implications of CEO celebrity for the over-all organization, however, aremore dubious. Twostudies, for instance (Malmendier & Tate, 2009;Wade et al., 2006), have shown that CEO socialacclaim, in the form of major media awards, isassociated with a negative performance trend inthe years following the awards. Both studiescontrolled for regression to the mean, so the ob-served performance drops were substantive, notillusory.

Despite these advances, our understanding ofCEO celebrity remains limited. It is standard, forinstance, to treat CEO celebrity as a unitary phe-nomenon, even though it is likely that CEOs be-come celebrities for various reasons, and thisvariety may be essential for predicting sub-sequent behaviors. Also, limited attention hasbeen given toCEOs’ varyingmotives for attainingcelebrity—including the possibility that somemay not wish for celebrity at all—or the implica-tions of such heterogeneous drives. And whilesome attention has been given to how celebrityleads to strategic persistence (Hayward et al.,2004), the factors that can enhance or attenuatethat tendency have not been considered. Morebroadly, the question remains: Why does CEOcelebrity, which the executive labor marketseems to value, often bring about unfavorableorganizational outcomes? And, equally impor-tant:Whydoes it happenonly someof the time?Toanswer these questions, we take a more nuancedapproach to celebrity by considering differentcelebrity CEO archetypes, the sociocognitive andbehavioral implications of attaining celebrity of

a given type, and key moderators that amplify ordampen those relationships.The fulcrum of our theory is the reality that

CEOs achieve celebrity because of specific out-sized types of leadership or accomplishment,rather than for their general achievements. Wedraw on theories of heroic drama and organiza-tional life cycles to specify four prominent celeb-rity CEO archetypes: creators, who found newbusinesses and/or are credited with generatingbold new innovations; transformers, who reshapecurrently successful firms to avoid potential fu-ture problems; rebels, who steer established firmsin new directions that are widely at odds withindustry norms; and saviors, who rescue estab-lished companies from imminent failure.We thenset forth a model detailing the consequences as-sociated with achieving celebrity of a given type.We propose that celebrity induces extreme con-fidence in the particular repertoire of behaviorsthat underlie the CEO’s acclaim. Further, celeb-rity CEOs experience social pressure to stay trueto their type, and they feel an emboldened senseof authority from the substantial deference theyare granted as a result of their celebrity. Thesesociocognitive outcomes give rise to behavioralconsequences: celebrity CEOs tend to (a) persistwith prior behaviors and (b) exaggerate them inan attempt to reinforce their persona in the pub-lic eye.We also identify moderators that amplify the

sociocognitive outcomes of CEO celebrity. First,weargue that the four celebrity archetypesvary intheir role intensities, with implications for theirpsychological salience to celebrityCEOs. Second,we identify a CEO’s degree of narcissism as animportant moderator, recognizing that someCEOsare far more motivated by celebrity than areothers. And third, we consider the temporal arc ofcelebrity, arguing that the steepness of a CEO’scelebrity ascent and the duration of celebrity eachexert amplifying effects on the sociocognitive out-comes of celebrity.Finally, our theory addresses the performance

consequences ofCEOcelebrity.Weargue that thebehavioral rigidities noted above create majorvulnerabilities for a celebrityCEO’s organization.As long as the external environment and internalfirm conditions call for behaviors associated witha celebrity CEO’s archetype, performance willbe satisfactory or even outstanding. If, however,there are appreciable external or internal con-textual shifts, a celebrity CEO’s rigidmindset and

420 JulyAcademy of Management Review

behaviors will become liabilities and firm per-formance will suffer.

The importance of our theory rests on multipleintersecting factors. First, in the current media-soaked era, many business leaders are placed onpedestals, perhaps more than ever. Second, eventhough the executive labormarket seems to valueCEO celebrity, and even though observers seeCEO celebrity as a benign cultural artifact, evi-dence indicates that CEO celebrity often bringsabout unfavorable organizational outcomes, ulti-mately harming investors, employees, and otherstakeholders. Third, although scholars havetaken initial steps to understand the social andpsychological consequences ofCEO celebrity, westill have a limited understanding of why thesenegative outcomes occur—and essentially nounderstanding of what causes variance in theseoutcomes. At this point corporate boards havelittle scholarly guidance for answering questionssuch as these: Should we encourage or discour-age our CEO in their quest for celebrity? Do someCEOs handle celebrity better than others? And,if our CEO attains celebrity, what challengesshould we anticipate?

CEO CELEBRITY: CONCEPT AND TYPES

Defining CEO Celebrity

Building on Rindova, Pollock, and Hayward’s(2006) definition of firm celebrity, we define CEOcelebrity as the extent to which a CEO elicitspositive emotional responses from a broad publicaudience. Many CEOs, including those of largecompanies, attain little attention or acclaim, evenamong their firms’ immediate stakeholders;a moderate number attain acclaim throughouttheir industries or among the public in theirheadquarters locales; and some attain acclaimamong broad national publics. Those CEOs whoare frequently and positively featured in the me-dia and who receive prominent awards from ma-jor national media outlets (Pfarrer, Pollock, &Rindova, 2010; Rindova et al., 2006) achieve thehighest levels of celebrity and are, correspond-ingly, most susceptible to the by-products of theiracclaim.

In prior studies researchers have used variousterms to refer to acclaimed CEOs, such as stars(e.g., Graffin et al., 2008; Wade et al., 2006) or super-stars (e.g., Malmendier & Tate, 2009), empiricallyidentifying them as winners of media-sponsored

“certification contests”—for example, CEO of theYear awards (Wade et al., 2006). Although suchtermshaveadegreeofpopularunderstanding, theyhave not been developed as distinct theoreticalconstructs, and our own reading is that these labelshave typicallybeenusedas synonyms for celebrity.For example, in building their hypothesis that CEOawardwinningwould lead tohighercompensation,Wade and colleagues argued, “Flattering mediaaccounts about medal-winning CEOs may encour-age boards to believe in the distinctive ability ofwinners and thus grant higher compensation tomanagers certified in the press” (2006: 647). The ef-fects of positive attention and acclaim—the coreelements of celebrity—are clear in this logic. Thus,we draw on this related research in developing ourtheory about celebrity CEOs.Celebrity is distinct from status, which refers

to one’s relative standing in a social hierarchyand is often gauged by elite directorships or theprominence of one’s current or past affiliations(Gould, 2002; Podolny, 2005). It is also distinct fromreputation, which recognizes the consistency andquality of an actor’s activities and outputs, typi-cally gauged by objective performance records orratings (Pfarrer et al., 2010; Rindova, Williamson,Petkova & Sever, 2005). Further, celebrity differsfrom infamy, which refers to negative emotionalresponses fromabroadaudience (Pollock,Mishina,& Seo, 2016; Zavyalova, Pfarrer, & Reger, 2017), aswell as from fame, which refers to the sheer vol-ume of attention an individual receives, regard-less of emotional valence (Braudy, 1986; van deRijt, Shor, Ward, & Skiena, 2013). Thus, over timea CEO can swing from celebrity to infamy (Chen& Meindl, 1991; Pollock et al., 2016) or from ob-scurity to a highmagnitude of celebrity and back(Gamson, 1994).

Antecedents of CEO Celebrity

Hayward and colleagues (2004) proposed thatcelebrity CEOs are media creations used to ex-plain firm events and performance. They arguedthat journalists, working on tight deadlines andlooking for interesting stories, often succumb tothe “fundamental attribution error” (e.g., Dirks &Ferrin, 2002; Ross, 1977) and attribute organiza-tional outcomes to the actions of individual CEOs.Because the media play a significant role in set-ting the agenda for public discourse (McCombs &Shaw, 1972; Rogers, Dearing, & Bregman, 1993),they are in a unique position to draw attention to

2018 421Lovelace, Bundy, Hambrick, and Pollock

particular CEOs whose behaviors make for “agood story.”

Hayward and colleagues (2004) argued thatjournalists will feature CEOs as heroes in theirnarratives when they exhibit distinctive andconsistent actions (also see Treadway, Adams,Ranft, & Ferris, 2009). Distinctive actions are thosethat seemnovel, rare, or valiant in the face of longodds. Consistent actions are those that havea clear pattern across contexts and are amenableto concise labeling and comprehension. Thisstipulation of consistency is central to our ratio-nale for recognizing a CEO’s specific type of ce-lebrity, which we discuss below. A CEO is onlylikely to become a celebrity if their behaviors andachievements form a consistent narrative thatcan be colorfully leveraged by the media and“cast” into an easily identifiable role or type(Pontikes, 2012; Zuckerman, Kim, Ukanwa, & vonRittmann, 2003).

CEOs vary in the degree to which they seekcelebrity and engage in purposeful efforts to at-tain it. Many CEOs, as Hayward and colleagues(2004) envisioned, have celebrity thrust uponthemby journalists who are intent on humanizingtheir stories.Others, however, eagerly participatein the celebrity creation process (Bednar, 2012;Chatterjee&Pollock, 2017;Westphal&Deephouse,2011). Primarily because of their narcissistic drivesfor applause and adulation (Chatterjee & Pollock,2017; Wallace & Baumeister, 2002), these CEOsovertly aid journalists in their efforts to craft heroicportrayals by, among other things, enlisting theservices of publicists or other surrogates, liberallyfeaturing themselves in company press releases,making themselves available for interviews, andmaintaining anactive socialmedia presence. Thisdistinction—between CEOs who strive for andpersonally value celebrity and those for whomcelebrity is an unintended attainment—is impor-tant in our theorizing regarding the role of narcis-sism below.

It is essential to emphasize that theantecedentsof CEO celebrity extendwell beyondCEOquality.To become a celebrity, a CEOmust possess someappeal and achievements that journalists canbuild their stories on. But these accomplishmentsmight be only remotely connected to overallbusiness performance, as evidenced by the mod-est correlations between financial performance(e.g., accounting or stock market returns) andmeasures reflecting celebrity (Milbourn, 2003;Wadeet al., 2006). Indeed, inhis researchon “good

to great” leaders, Jim Collins (2001) noted thatmany of the most successful CEOs of that time(including Darwin Smith of Kimberly-Clark andDavid Maxwell of Fannie Mae) never receivedmuch celebrity, while other leaders of less suc-cessful firms often garnered much more atten-tion and praise (including Lee Iacocca ofChrysler and Stanley Gault of Rubbermaid).Therefore, it is theoretically and empiricallylegitimate to compare celebrity CEOs to non-celebrity CEOs with similar performance re-cordswho have received less acclaim (Malmendier& Tate, 2009).

A Typology of Celebrity CEOs

While Hayward and colleagues (2004) de-veloped theory to understand CEO celebrity asa general construct, we argue that celebrity cantake different—and strikingly distinct—forms,based on the nature of the drama in which CEOsare cast and the challenges they are portrayedas overcoming. As theorized below, a CEO’scelebrity archetype is pivotal: the specific at-tributed behaviors and persona that propela CEO to a given celebrity type will then con-strain subsequent behaviors in ways that canhelp or hurt the firm, depending on contextualconditions.At this point it is useful to clarify the terminol-

ogy we use for key interrelated constructs. Werefer to the magnitude of celebrity as one’s placeon an overall celebrity scale—that is, how “big”a celebrity the CEO is. The term degree of celeb-rity of a given type refers to the extent to whicha CEO is associated with a specific set of leader-ship behaviors and accomplishments. In thissection we describe four prevalent celebrity CEOarchetypes. Thus, while the raw volume of posi-tive attention may empirically capture the mag-nitude of overall celebrity, the specific content ornature of that positive attention captures the de-gree of celebrity of a given type, which we argueis critical for understanding the behavioral out-comes of celebrity. Finally, in our discussion ofpotential moderators, we introduce the concept ofrole intensity, which reflects the extent to whicha specific celebrity type is socially constructed soas to elicit salience and immersion from someoneassigned to that role. Role intensity is an attributeof a role itself, which in our case is a specific ce-lebrity type.Weargue that the four celebrity typeswe introducevary in their role intensities, evoking


different levels of psychological immersion fromcelebrity CEO role holders.

Our explication of a celebrity CEO typology isbased on three considerations. First, journalistswho create personalized, heroic portrayals ofbusiness leaders are under well-known (but oftenimplicit) pressure to slot their portrayals into rec-ognizable categories (Ashforth &Humphrey, 1997;Zuckerman et al., 2003). Just as movies, novels,and wines must fit into distinct genres to receiveacclaim, so, too, must journalists’ portrayals ofCEOs follow familiar story lines. Individual jour-nalists might add their own color and intriguingpersonal details (Rindova et al., 2006), but thebroad theme of a story about a celebrity CEOwilllargely adhere to some familiar trope (Kent, 2015).

Second, if we conceptualize CEO celebrity asthe construction of a heroic drama, it becomesclear that certain dramatic elements must bepresent (Smiley & Bert, 2005). There must bea “disturbance” or disequilibrium that createsdramatic conflict or challenges to overcome.There must also be a protagonist, the hero whopossesses certain rare and admirable qualities;an antagonist, or adversary to be conquered; andactions that the protagonist takes to resolve theconflict and vanquish the antagonist (Bryant &Miron, 2002; Kent, 2015; Smiley & Bert, 2005).

Third, all dramas must have a comprehensiblesetting, stage, or arena of action. Heroic dramastypically focus on distinct stages of the hero’s lifejourney, from birth and adolescence to matu-rity and transformation to decline and death(Campbell, 2008). These life-stage dramas call tomind the well-known concept of the organiza-tional life cycle, which is typically portrayed asconsisting of four stages: founding, growth, ma-turity, and decline (e.g., Greiner, 1972; Jawahar& McLaughlin, 2001; Miller & Friesen, 1984).Scholars have studied how strategies and struc-tures need to change over these stages (Boeker &Wiltbank, 2005; Chandler, 1962; Lynall, Golden, &Hillman, 2003) and have documented the distinctperils that exist at each stage (Greiner, 1972;Smith, Mitchell, & Summer, 1985). In turn, theseperils, when confronted by individual leaders,provide ripe conditions for journalists to craftdistinct but tried-and-true portrayals of heroicfigures. When we couple this life cycle logic withour observations of the most common media ac-counts of heroic business leaders, four majorcelebrity CEO archetypes emerge: creator, trans-former, rebel, and savior.

As summarized in Table 1, each archetypecontains a distinct set of characteristics, whichwhen combined with particular settings, chal-lenges, actions, and outcomes forms a familiartrope, or recognizable heroic story (Campbell,2008; Kent, 2015). Each celebrity archetype isfound in a certain kind of arena or specific lifecycle stage at which it is most likely to occur(i.e., founding, growth, maturity, decline), andthere is a particular type of conflict within thatsetting that needs to be resolved (e.g., creationand growth in the face of forces intent ondestroying a young challenger before it reachesmaturity; challenges coalescing on the horizonthat others fail to recognize). Further, the pro-tagonist possesses a particular mix of admirabletraits—specifically, certain forms of valiance andprescience (Smiley & Bert, 2005)—and there is anadversary—not necessarily a corporeal entitybut, rather, something that has to be defeated(i.e., nothingness, failure, industry norms, ora firm’s past). We now detail each archetype.Creator. Starting and successfully building a

business is highly distinctive and very difficult toaccomplish (Reich, 1987). The creator is the CEOwho achieves acclaim for founding and/or grow-ing a company from its earliest days, whichmighteven include creating a new market category orindustry. Media accounts describe the creator asavisionary, entrepreneur, innovator, and risk taker(Baker, 2014). Examples of the creator celebrity in-clude Bill Gates of Microsoft, Howard Schultz ofStarbucks, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Mark Zuckerbergof Facebook, and Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX.The creator’s commitment to innovation is evidentthrough their openness to new ideas, readiness toembrace challenges, andwillingness to takemajorrisks (Stam & Elfring, 2008; Wiklund & Shepherd,2003). Their focus isnot on immediateprofitability,but rather on expanding the firm’s strategicstandingwhile combating the omnipresent threatof failure. Creators are portrayed as showing pre-science in seeing opportunities that others do not,and exhibiting the courage, tenacity, and creativ-ity to bring their visions to life in the face of larger,more powerful actors.Transformer. A leader who deliberately re-

shapes the strategy and culture of a well-performing firm in order to avoid future prob-lems is portrayed as a transformer. The trans-former engages in heroic actions to save the firmfrom eventual failure, rather than from imminentfailure. Thus, the arena in which transformers’


dramas generally unfold is the late growth andmaturity phases of a firm’s life cycle, when it iscurrently experiencing successbut the seedsof itseventual decline are taking root. Transformersare portrayed as exceedingly prescient, sincetheir initiatives involve predicting and avoidingfuture difficulties that others do not see; they areperceived as valiant because of the great chal-lenges inherent in convincing a prospering socialentity to change its ways (Greenwood& Suddaby,2006; Seo & Creed, 2002). The media describetransformers as long-term thinkers, reinventers,and change agents (Hamm & Ante, 2005; Hempel,

2011). Transformers are portrayed as masterfullyapplying the tools and techniques all CEOswieldand fostering changes others could not achieve.The transformer’sprincipaladversary is the firm’spast record of success and complacency. Exam-ples of transformer celebrity CEOs include JackWelchatGE,UrsulaBurnsatXerox,SamPalmisanoat IBM, and Indra Nooyi at PepsiCo.Rebel. Unlike transformers, who battle their

own firms’ past successes, rebels are CEOs whosteer their firms in strategic and cultural di-rections that are at odds with industry conven-tions. Violating industry norms is inherently risky

TABLE 1A Typology of Celebrity CEOs

CelebrityType Description

Arena/Life Cycle

Attributions ofValiance

Attributions ofPrescience Adversary

PrototypicalBehaviors

Creator The leader whocreates a newbusiness/newproducts, in somecases time andagain

Founding/growth

Visionary,entrepreneur,innovator, risktaker

Recognizesopportunitiesthat othersdonot;has vision andforesight in theface of likelyfailure

Nothingness Commits toinnovation andrisk taking,focuses ongrowth anddevelopmentrather than costsand profits

Transformer The leader whoradicallyreshapes a firm’sstrategy/cultureto avoid futureproblems

Growth/maturity

Long-term thinker,reinventer,change agent

Has foresightregardingfuture unseenchallengesand obstacles

The firm’s past/traditions

Introduces long-term vision,repudiates firm’spast, convincesothers of need tochange,highlightssuccesses tosupport newdirection

Rebel The leader whocrafts a newstrategicdirection thatis at odds withindustry norms/conventions

Growth/maturity

Nontraditional,fearless,challenger ofthe status quo,authentic

Has insight abouta new anddifferent way toprosper in anindustry

Industry norms Challengesindustry norms,takes extremeactions todifferentiate fromcompetitors,aggressivelytargetscompetitors’tactics

Savior The leader whorescues a firmfrom the brinkof failure,typically throughdisciplinedcuts andconsolidation

Decline Accountable,tough,disciplined,problem solver

Has insight abouta path to survivalin the face oflikely failure

Failure/deathof theorganization

Cuts costs,consolidatesassets to refocuson essentialfunction(s),centralizesoperations,establishes clearpolicies andprocedures withnear-term focus


(Leblebici, Salancik, Copay, & King, 1991); thus,CEOswhodo so are portrayedas bold iconoclastsand courageous rule breakers who possess theprescience to identify new ways of prospering inindustries that have well-defined recipes forsuccess (Baker, Pollock & Sapienza, 2013) butwhere those norms now point to decline. Thus,rebels are typically found in a firm’s growth andmaturity phases. The media characterize rebelsas nontraditional, fearless, and challengers ofthe status quo (Cheng, 2013; Sacks, 2015). Exam-ples of rebel celebrities include John Legere of T-Mobile, Tony Hsieh of Zappos, and Brian Cheskyof Airbnb—all of whom challenged highly in-stitutionalized industry norms and whose be-haviors were credited for their success.

Savior. Rescuing a company from the brink offailure is difficult to do and, hence, makes fora good heroic story (Khurana, 2002), particularly ifthe company was previously successful but issliding toward failure. The savior, then, is the ce-lebrity CEO credited with successfully turningaround a company already in decline. The mediadescribe the savior’s persona using themes suchas accountability, toughness, and discipline(Anders, 2013). Examples of the savior celebrityinclude Lee Iacocca of Chrysler, Lou Gerstner ofIBM, Carlos Ghosn of Nissan, and Jamie Dimon ofBank One, now JPMorgan Chase (Khurana, 2002).Saviors tend to establish organizational struc-tures with clear policies and procedures thatcentralize firm operations to “stop the bleed-ing” (Castrogiovanni, Baliga, & Kidwell, 1992: 31).They demonstrate prescience by seeing a path tosurvival, pruning ineffective or nonessential ele-ments, and focusing on internal efficiencies thatenhance near-term viability (Ellis, 2012).

We are not asserting that these are the onlycelebrity CEO archetypes. However, other celeb-rity personas are less prevalent, and journalistswho attempt to create heroic portrayals that de-viate from these familiar schemas are likely toencounter audience confusion (Fiske & Taylor,1991). In some instances, combinations of thesetropes will resonate with audiences, but even incombination one type typically prevails. For ex-ample, portrayals of Jeff Bezos and Tony Hsiehconvey both creator and rebel themes, but thecreator theme—with such bywords as visionary,entrepreneur, and innovator—dominate Bezos’snarrative, while the rebel theme—with such by-words as radical, madman, and experimenter—dominate the narrative about Hsieh.

In rare cases CEOs may fulfill different arche-types at different points in time, which maylargely depend on the organizational life cycle.For example, Steve Jobs first achieved celebrityas a creator after founding Apple, and then asa saviorwhen he returned to Apple ten years afterhis ouster and the firmwas in decline. Rare casesaside, our key point is that CEOs attain celebritybecause they exhibit distinctive repertoires ofattributes and behaviors that can readily be slot-ted into engaging but familiar roles (Kent, 2015;Smiley & Bert, 2005). Once a CEO is ascribeda particular celebrity archetype or role, the rep-ertoire takesonaddedmeaning, constitutingavividpersona in both the eyes of the public and the mindof the CEO.Following from this type-based view, our over-

archingmodel is shown inFigure 1. The triggeringfactor for the entire model (shown on the far left)is a CEO’s degree of celebrity of a given type. Aswe argued earlier, CEOs range from having littleacclaim to having a great deal of acclaim fora specific archetype, but very rarely for multiplearchetypes. We integrate and build on prior lit-erature by specifying three sociocognitive con-sequences of attaining celebrity of a given type:(1) extreme confidence, resulting from the in-ternalization of type-specific social praise; (2) feltpressure to remain true to type, due to the socialexpectations of celebrity typecasting; and (3) anincreased sense of authority, stemming fromconsiderable social deference. We next considermajormoderators thatserve toenhance (ormitigate)these sociocognitive outcomes. Then we argue thatthese sociocognitive outcomes “shackle” celebrityCEOs, constraining their behavioral repertoires byincreasing their tendencies to persist in type-specific behaviors and further exaggerate thesebehaviors. Finally, we consider the performanceimplications associated with the shackles of CEOcelebrity.

THE SHACKLES OF CEO CELEBRITY:SOCIOCOGNITIVE OUTCOMES

In this section we posit that CEOs who attaincelebrity of a given type are subjected to certainsociocognitive forces that influence their psy-chological outlooks. To establish these connec-tions, we consider the relationships among (1)social praise and a CEO’s confidence (Hiller &Hambrick, 2005; Shipman & Mumford, 2011), (2)social expectations and a CEO’s felt pressure to


meet these expectations (Bothner, Kim, & Smith,2012; Humphrey & Aime, 2014), and (3) social def-erence and a CEO’s sense of authority to act (DeCremer & Tyler, 2007; Finkelstein & Boyd, 1998;Hambrick & Finkelstein, 1987).

Increased Confidence

In their foundational description, Hayward andcolleagues (2004) argued that CEO celebrity arisesfrom the media’s highly subjective attributions ofCEO influence on organizational outcomes. Thismedia praise, central to attaining celebrity, istheorized to have two interconnected effects onCEOs. First, celebrity CEOs tend to internalizethese designations, or “believe their own press,”becoming more and more convinced that they infact shaped the outcomes attributed to them(Hayward et al., 2004: 645). Second, because socialpraise drives perceptions of capabilities and self-worth (Koestner, Zuckerman, & Koestner, 1987), ascelebrity CEOs internalize their acclaim, theycome to have greater confidence in their abilitiesas leadersandstrategists—wellabove thealreadyinflated self-confidence typical of most CEOs(Hiller &Hambrick, 2005;Malmendier & Tate, 2005).Over and above the typical imprinting that comesfrom a CEO’s prior experiences and successes

(Hambrick & Fukutomi, 1991; Hambrick & Mason,1984), attaining celebrity elevates a CEO’s convic-tion in their talents even more. As Hayward andcolleagues emphasized, however, the elevatedconfidence that follows from celebrity may or maynot be warranted.While Hayward and colleagues (2004) recog-

nized CEOs’ tendencies to internalize the socialpraise associated with celebrity and gain confi-dence, they were silent about the domains of agiven celebrity’s increased confidence. We arguethatacelebrityCEO’sconfidencewillbeespeciallyheightened for those behaviors that have beencentral to attaining their specific type of celebrity,more so than for the broad range of behaviors thatcharacterize a generically “excellent” CEO. Thisoccurs because the attributional accounts that ce-lebrities internalize, and that engender their con-fidence, focus on actions associated with theirspecific archetype. Just as themedia can influencethe salienceof certain topics for general audiences(McCombs & Shaw, 1972), the media praise asso-ciated with celebrity enhances the salience of cer-tain type-specific activities over others for celebrityCEOs. Thus, celebrity CEOs’ enhanced percep-tions of their capabilities and self-worth will beattuned primarily to the dramatic elements of theirparticular heroic stories.

FIGURE 1The Shackles of Celebrity Theoretical Model

Degree of celebrity of a given type

Sociocognitive outcomes

Internalized celebrity:increased confidenceto remain true to type

Typecasting:increased felt pressure

to stay true to type

Sense of authority: decreased deliberation andincreased proclivity to act

Behavioral outcomes

Persisting with celebrity-generating

behaviorsExaggerating

celebrity-generating behaviors

Firmperformance

Contextualconditions

• Continuity of external conditions

• Continuity ofinternal conditions

CEO degree of narcissism

Temporal arc of celebrity

• Speed of ascent• Duration

Role intensity of each type

Moderators


For instance, creator celebrities are likely tohavegreat confidence in their abilities associatedwith innovation, opportunity seeking, and pursu-ing new markets. As a creator, Elon Musk’s ce-lebrity is based onhis forward-thinking ideasandability to create newmarkets usingadvancedandoften untested technology (e.g., electric cars,space travel). Media praise for Musk focuses pri-marily on these type-specific behaviors andabilities (Hoefflinger, 2015); thus, the confidencegenerated by internalizing this praise will centeron these specific abilities. In contrast, savior ce-lebrities are likely to develop extreme confidencein their abilities to generate efficiencies, stream-line structures and processes, and facilitate cul-tural change. For example, much of Lee Iacocca’ssocial praise focused on his turnaround ofChrysler, which led to an improved cost structureand marketing enhancements (Khurana, 2002).Because these behavioral domains formed thebasis for Iacocca’s acclaim, we surmise that hisconfidence in them was especially buoyed. Assuch, we propose the following.

Proposition 1: The greater a CEO’s de-gree of celebrity of a given type, thegreater the CEO’s confidence in actionsand behaviors associated with thatparticular celebrity archetype.

Felt Pressure to Stay True to Type

As a second sociocognitive consequence, ce-lebrity CEOs experience increased social pres-sures that “typecast” them into their specificcelebrity roles. Individuals are subject to theopinions and judgments of those towhom theyaresocially connected (Asch, 1951; French & Raven,1959; Oc & Bashshur, 2013), which leads to certainfelt pressures and expectations. Individuals playdifferent “roles” in their daily lives, and each rolehas its own set of socially constructed “beliefs,norms, rules and emotions” (Jensen, Kim, & Kim,2012: 146) that create expectations about how in-dividuals inhabiting the role must think and be-have (Biddle, 1986; Callero, 1994; Jensen et al.,2012). Role performance is externally assessedrelative to these expectations, and praise is givenwhen actions and behaviors are consistent withthem.

We argue that “celebrity CEO” constitutes arole and that this role and associated expecta-tions can be further segmented into the specific

archetypical roles. Therefore, CEOs who are castas specific celebrity archetypes are expected bytheir “attentive publics”—stakeholder audienceswho pay attention to CEOs’ actions—to behave inparticular ways (Rindova et al., 2006; Zavyalovaet al., 2017). A celebrity CEO’s attentive publicfurther magnifies these expectations by pro-moting their positive perceptions of the CEO toa broader audience, reinforcing the social pres-sure on the leader to behave to type (Galvin,Balkundi &Waldman, 2010). For example, MarissaMayer’s role as transformer at Yahoo! high-lights this process: “She’s there to do the brilliantthings she did at Google . . . [and] there’s a giantspotlightwatchingher everymove” (Baskin, 2013).As celebrity CEOs strive to behave in line withadmirers’ expectations (Correll & Ridgeway, 2003;Humphrey &Aime, 2014), they begin to internalizethese social pressures and feel constrained intheir set of available actions and behaviors.Adler and Adler (1989) argued that playing the

role of a celebrity can result in a “gloried self”conception, as the media create and reflect animage defining the individual in terms of thespecific attributes and behaviors that gave rise totheir glory. This image is less complex than theindividual’s private persona—sometimes verg-ing on a caricature—and reframes the celebrity’spsychological outlook such that the celebrity feelspressured to think andact inways consistentwiththe public image. This process is distinct from theinternalization process detailed above, which fo-cuses on the CEO’s confidence in their abilities.Rather, the gloried self results froma felt pressureto behave consistently with one’s specific celeb-rity archetype—a pressure that is independent ofthe CEO’s confidence in their type-specific capa-bilities. The need for continuing social approval,the sense of esteem that accompanies the gloriedself, and the continued media attention that ce-lebrities seekmakedeviations from thebehaviorsthat generated their acclaim difficult. As stake-holder audiences typecast celebrity CEOs intocertain roles, these CEOs feel immense psycho-logical pressure to adhere to those roles. Thus, wepropose the following.

Proposition 2: The greater a CEO’s de-gree of celebrity of a given type, thegreater the CEO feels pressured to be-have in ways consistent with that par-ticular celebrity archetype.


Heightened Sense of Authority

As a third sociocognitive consequence, celeb-rity CEOs are likely to experience an emboldenedsense of authority to act, particularly in waysconsistent with their celebrity types. A sense ofauthority captures one’s perceived right to act,which is distinct from confidence, or one’s per-ceived ability to act efficaciously. This sense ofauthority primarily results from the increasedsocial deference that celebrities receive fromstakeholders (De Cremer & Tyler, 2007). Althoughdeference arises for various reasons, Tyler (1997)highlighted two interrelated causes: (1) obtainingrewards and avoiding punishment and (2) a gen-uine belief in the authority figure’s legitimacy.Both sources are typically present for celebrityCEOs. Stakeholder audiences, including boardsand other organizational members, recognize thesocial validation and prestige that come fromassociating with a celebrity CEO (Finkelstein,1992; Khurana, 2002) and, thus, will grant the CEOincreased leeway (Finkelstein & Hambrick, 1990).Andgiven that celebrityCEOsarepraised for theirability to achieve positive outcomes (Haywardet al., 2004), stakeholders will endeavor to mini-mize obstacles for these acclaimed leaders.

In turn, as stakeholders grant greater deferenceto a celebrity CEO, theCEO is likely to experiencean increased sense of authority and perceivedpower to act (e.g., Keltner, Gruenfeld, &Anderson,2003; Rind & Kipnis, 1999). As the celebrity CEO’ssense of authority increases, their perceptionsofsocialconstraintsdecrease, reducingdeliberationand further increasing the sense of authority—andthe proclivity to take action (e.g., Chen, Lee-Chai, &Bargh, 2001; Galinsky, Gruenfeld, & Magee, 2003).For example, when Mark Zuckerberg implementeda unique ownership structure that allowed him toretain voting control following Facebook’s IPO,Macke (2012) commented, “The people with theability to innovate have all the power. These entre-preneurs are exercising that power by issuingshares as a take-it-or-leave-it proposition.” RebelJohn Legere is similarly given great leeway as heattempts to reshape T-Mobile and challenge thenorms of the telecom industry. As he is given moredeference, his sense of authority increases and hetakes advantage of this leeway in unconventionalways that “would get most CEOs fired or sued, es-pecially in the buttoned-up telecom industry”

(Sacks, 2015).

Like the other sociocognitive outcomes (in-creased confidence associated with socialpraise and felt pressure associated with socialexpectations), we argue that the increased senseof authority accompanying celebrity CEOs’ so-cial deference will be type specific. Theory sug-gests that “out-of-character” behaviors induceunease in stakeholders, causing them to reducetheir deference (i.e., Aime, Humphrey, De Rue, &Paul, 2014; Dornbusch & Scott, 1975). In this sensestakeholders are willing to give a behavioral“blank check” to celebrity CEOs—but withincertain type-specific boundaries. Because cer-tain types of prior behaviors generated theirspecific types of acclaim, celebrity CEOs will bemotivated to direct their new authority towardexactly the same behaviors as they seek to fur-ther increase their standing. Indeed, researchsuggests that individualswith a perceived senseof power and authority tend to employ more au-tomatic forms of information processing (Keltneret al., 2003), largely relying on old habits andbehaviors. We recognize the possibility that anincreased sense of authoritymight engender out-of-character behaviors in attempts to cementstakeholders’ beliefs in the celebrity’s overallgreatness (i.e., Conger & Kanungo, 1998; Jaussi& Dionne, 2003), but we primarily expect thatstakeholders’ perceptions, combined with theCEO’s own biases (as specified above), will di-rect that sense of authority to actions conformingto the CEO’s celebrity archetype. We thereforepropose the following.

Proposition 3: The greater a CEO’s de-gree of celebrity of a given type, thegreater the CEO feels a sense of au-thority to act, particularly in ways con-sistent with that celebrity archetype.

TIGHTENING THE SHACKLES: MODERATORS

Beyond the main effects described so far,prior research points to three especially potentmoderators, which we develop in this section.First, we describe how our four celebrity ar-chetypes vary in their role intensity, which em-anates from attributes of the roles themselves,with implications for how celebrity CEOs ex-perience their respective archetypes. Next,recognizing that celebrity is not uniformly mo-tivating or important for all CEOs, we argue thata CEO’s degree of narcissism heightens the


sociocognitive consequences associated withthe CEO’s celebrity type. Last, we introduce thetemporal arc of celebrity—specifically, the speedof ascent and duration of celebrity—as additionalamplifiers of the sociocognitive outcomes ofcelebrity.

Role Intensities of Celebrity Archetypes

Organizational roles vary in their intensity, orthe degree to which role expectations are sociallyconstructed to elicit salience and immersion fromroleholders (Ashforth, 2001; Stryker, 1980). Ashforth(2001) noted that incumbents and observers seecertain roles as more significant than others,depending on the visibility, distinctiveness, andsocially agreed desirability of the role. Similarly,Lynch (2007: 381) characterized roles as havinga “set of expectations that society places on theindividual” and noted that the strength of theseexpectations varies across roles. For example,the role ofminister is highly visible andvalued insociety and, thus, is perceived and experiencedmore intensely than, say, the role of consultant.Similarly, in theatrical circles it is commonlyobserved that certain roles aremore intense thanothers; for instance, tragic roles are known toinduce much more psychological and emotionalimmersion from actors than comedic roles(Konjin, 2000; Lewis, 1958). Research on relatedconcepts such as deep acting and emotional la-bor further reaffirms that a role’s attributes canamplify an individual’s experience in that role(e.g., Grandey, 2000; Grandey & Gabriel, 2015;Hochschild, 1983).

Thus, role intensity emanates from attributesof the role itself and, in turn, influences the psy-chology of the role holder. Themore intensea role,themore intensely the rolewill be experienced bythe role holder, inducing more psychological im-mersion and identificationwith the role (Ashforth,2001; Lewis, 1958). For the sake of parsimony, wedo not explicitly theorize about the link betweenrole intensity (a socially constructed role attri-bute) and role identification (a psychological at-tribute), but it is an implied and, we believe,strong link.

Weanticipate that the four celebrity archetypesdeveloped earlier—creator, transformer, rebel,and savior—tend to vary in their role intensities.We argue that differences in the celebrity arche-types’ role intensities rest in two distinctions:(1) whether the celebrity archetype is cast as

a member of an “outgroup” or “ingroup” (Hogg &Terry, 2001) and (2) whether the archetype is castas heading a firm that faces a high likelihood ofimminent failure versus anunknown likelihood ofeventual failure.According to prior theory (Pollock et al., 2016;

Rindova et al., 2006; Zavyalova et al., 2017), in-dividuals attain celebrity either by being exceed-inglycounternormative (iconoclasts) orexceedinglynormative (professional exemplars). Among thefour celebrity CEO archetypes, two—creatorand rebel—are generally portrayed as highlycounternormative, with individuals behaving inunconventional ways and disregarding rules.As such, individuals in these roles are typi-cally construed as members of an outgroup(Hogg & Abrams, 1988; Hogg & Terry, 2001). Thecounternormative nature of these roles is exac-erbated by their visibility and distinctiveness,amplifying their intensities. By comparison,transformers and saviors are typically portrayedasexceedingly talentedbut prototypical businessexecutives—essentially “MBAs on steroids.” TheseCEOs achieve acclaim by engaging inmainstreamCEO behaviors like managing costs, altering thefirm’s mix of products and markets, and revisingorganizational structures and policies—albeit inthe face of extreme challenges—and are thereforeconsidered exemplars from among the ingroup(Rindova et al., 2006).The celebrity CEO archetypes also differ in the

extent to which the focal firm faces a high likeli-hood of imminent failure. AsAshforth (2001) noted,a role’s intensity increases the more it is seen ascritical to valued outcomes. Young, embryonicfirms are inherently vulnerable, facing consider-able liabilities of newnessand smallness (Hannan& Freeman, 1977; Stinchcombe, 1965), and thushave a high likelihood of failure. Similarly, estab-lished firms incurring major losses are vulnerableto rapid “death spirals” (Hambrick&D’Aveni, 1992)as stakeholders quickly flee. The highpotential forfailure leads stakeholders to look to leaders todefine problems and provide solutions (i.e., Bligh,Kohles, & Pillai, 2011; Pastor, Mayo, & Shamir,2007), intensifying thepressureon themto liveup toexpectations. By comparison, transformers andrebels are cast in roles where failure, if likely atall, is on the more distant horizon. While the re-moteness of failure adds to the challenges of con-vincing their organizations they need to change, itdoes not create the same intensity as the imminentrisk of failure.


Given these arguments, as summarized inFigure 2, we anticipate major differences in therole intensities of the four CEO celebrity arche-types. Creators are expected to face the greatestrole intensity, since they are cast in outsider rolesand their firms face imminent failure. Saviors andrebels face intermediate levels of role intensity:saviors face a high likelihood of imminent failure,but they are insiders; conversely, rebels do notface imminent failure, but they are outsiders.Finally, transformers are expected to generallyencounter the least role intensity, since they areinsiderswhose firmsdonot face imminent failure.Thus, we propose the following.

Proposition 4: Role intensity will begreatest for creator celebrity roles, in-termediate for savior and rebel roles,and least for transformer roles.

We envision that more intense roles elicit whatKreiner, Hollensbe, and Sheep (2006: 1034) referredto as “extreme integration” of social roles andpersonal identities. For example, prior researchhas shown that outgroup members employ a vari-ety of tactics to deal with their “outsider” status,including increasing the extent to which the roledefines who they are as an individual (Hoang &Gimeno, 2010; Powell & Baker, 2014). And research

on identity salience suggests that when roles aremore socially vivid and important, as in the case ofimminent failure, they will increasingly shapehowindividualsperceive theworldand their placein it (Albert & Whetten, 1985; Ashforth, Harrison, &Corley, 2008; Weick, 1995). Thus, we argue that thesociocognitive pressures associated with a celeb-rityCEOarchetypewill begreater as role intensityincreases. In other words, for the same degreeof celebrity between two different types (say, be-tween a creator and a savior), greater role inten-sity will heighten the sociocognitive outcomesexperienced by one celebrity versus the other (inour case the creator would experience these out-comes more strongly than the savior, despite hav-ing similar levels of type-specific attention andacclaim). It is important to note that because wedefine role intensity as an attribute of the roleitself, our concern is with the “between-type” dif-ferences associated with the celebrity archetypes.Thus, as a CEO experiences the celebrity role

more intensely and increasingly identifieswith it,the CEO will gain increased confidence in the ac-tions associated with that role. The social praiseassociated with celebrity will be more salient andfelt more acutely, and the repertoire of type-specific celebrity actions the praise highlightswill come to represent core components of the

FIGURE 2Role Intensity of Four CEO Celebrity Archetypes

Normativity

Low(lesser intensity)

High(greater intensity)

Hypernormative (ingroup)(lesser intensity)

Counternormative (outgroup)(greater intensity)

Perceivedlikelihoodof firm’s

imminentfailure

Rebel( – / + )

Transformer( – / – )

Creator( + / + )

Savior( + / – )


CEO’s self-concept. Because a role’s intensity istied to one’s self-efficacy (Ashforth, 2001; Vignoles,Regalia, Manzi, Golledge, & Scabini, 2006), a ce-lebrity CEO’s confidence in the prototypical be-haviors of their specific archetype will beamplified in proportion to that role’s intensity.

Similarly, as role intensity increases, aCEOwillalso increasingly feel the social pressures andexpectations associated with their celebrity role.As noted by Ashforth and colleagues, “Definingoneself in terms of a collective or role encouragesone to enact the values, beliefs, and norms of thatcollective or role” (2008: 338). This suggests that asa CEO is increasingly attuned to the social ex-pectations and pressures associated with theircelebrity archetype, the felt pressure to act in ac-cord with that role will be heightened.

Finally, as a CEO’s awareness of the expecta-tions associated with their celebrity role grows,their perceived authority to act inways consistentwith their role isalsoenhanced.Researchsuggeststhat the greater the CEO’s connection to a givenrole, the more reflexively, easily, and naturally theCEO will enact the behaviors associated with therole,withoutmuchthoughtor consultationofothers(Ashforth, 2001; Ashforth, Kreiner, & Fugate, 2000).Related research also suggests that the more in-tensely a CEO experiences a role, the more likelythe CEO will feel psychological ownership of thatrole (Mayhew, Ashkanasy, Bramble, & Gardner,2007). Such psychological ownership engendersa sense of authority, or exclusive right of controlover the role and its associated behaviors (Pierce,Kostova, & Dirks, 2001). Thus, the greater the roleintensity, the more a celebrity CEO feels empow-ered to act in ways consistent with the archetypethat forms their self-concept.

Taken together, our logic suggests that creatorswill experience the sociocognitive outcomes fromcelebrity the most and transformers will experi-ence these outcomes the least, with rebels andsaviors somewhere in the middle. More formally,we propose the following.

Proposition 5: The greater the role in-tensity of a CEO celebrity archetype,the stronger the associations betweendegree of celebrity of a given type andthe sociocognitive outcomes (increasedconfidence to remain true to type, in-creased felt pressure to stay true to type,and increased sense of authority to actin type-specific ways).

CEO’s Degree of Narcissism

CEOs vary in how much they are personallymotivated by celebrity (Adler & Adler, 1989;Cowen, 2000; Malmendier & Tate, 2009; Maltbyet al., 2008) as a function of their degree of nar-cissism (Chatterjee & Pollock, 2017; Greenwood,Long, & Dal Cin, 2013). Highly narcissistic CEOspursue public acclaim and eagerly participate inhelping journalists bring it about (Chatterjee &Pollock, 2017). Less narcissistic CEOs are not asenticed by celebrity but insteadmayhave it thrustupon them as a by-product of their accomplish-ments (Adler & Adler, 1989; Cowen, 2000).Narcissists possess intense self-admiration and

a chronic need for their self-admiration to be rein-forcedbyothers (Chatterjee&Hambrick, 2007, 2011).Thus, highly narcissistic individuals will grand-stand in the pursuit of acclaim (Chatterjee &Pollock, 2017). In this vein, for instance, Adler andAdler (1989) noted that individual differences—humility versus narcissism—among the collegeathletes theystudiedcorrespondedwithdifferencesin how important the acclaimwas to them and howmuch they internalized their new “glorified selves.”If celebrity is personally important to highly nar-

cissistic CEOs, then, once obtained, they will berelatively preoccupied by it and attentive to itsmeaning and maintenance. This preoccupationwith celebrity will influence the sociocognitiveoutcomes specified in our model. Highly narcissis-tic CEOs, compared to less narcissistic CEOs, willtend to view their acclaim as true evidence or vali-dation of their talents, and the media praise asso-ciated with their celebrity will engender greaterconfidence in their type-specific repertoire of be-haviors. These narcissistic CEOswill be especiallymindful of how they are seen by their publics and,hence, will feel greater social pressure to stay trueto type and satisfy audience expectations. Keenlyaware of the benefits of celebrity, narcissisticCEOswill perceive an even greater sense of authority toact as they receive increased deference fromstakeholders. We therefore propose the following.

Proposition 6: The greater a CEO’s de-gree of narcissism, the stronger the as-sociations between the degree ofcelebrity of a given type and the socio-cognitive outcomes (increased confi-dence to remain true to type, increasedfelt pressure to stay true to type, andincreased sense of authority to act intype-specific ways).


The Arc of Celebrity

Celebrity is a transitory phenomenon, since thehigh levels of positive emotional resonance thatunderpin celebrity are rarely sustained (Rindovaet al., 2006). Thus, a CEO’s magnitude of celebrityrises and falls over time, constituting the arc of ce-lebrity.Weargue that twodynamicattributes of thearc of celebrity—the speed of ascent and the dura-tion of celebrity, illustrated in Figure 3—will affectthe relationship between the degree of celebrity ofa given type and the sociocognitive outcomes ex-perienced. The speed of ascent—the upward slopeof the arc—describes how rapidly a CEO attainsa certain magnitude of celebrity. The duration ofcelebrity—the time between when a particularmagnitude of celebrity is first gained and eventu-ally lost—describes how long a CEO is a celebrity.The duration can refer to the entire arc, as depictedby the complete curve shown in Figure 3, or to onlythat portion of the arc that has unfolded by a givenpoint in time,whichwouldbe thedescriptor used topredict a CEO’s mindset at that point.

Executives lean on their experiences to guidetheir decision making (Cyert & March 1963; Hitt& Tyler, 1991). We argue that a rapid ascent tocelebrity and/or long-sustained celebrity fun-damentally alters how a CEO processes andinterprets experiences (Finkelstein et al., 2009;Miller, 1993), amplifying the sociocognitive out-comes of celebrity.

When celebrity mounts rapidly, the effects onan individual tend to be considerable (Janis &Mann, 1977; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Newlyawash in public acclaim, the individual becomes

preoccupied (even if subconsciously) by thestimulation of celebrity. Experiencing applauselike never before, and having the applause ac-knowledged by those around them, the celebrityCEO cannot help but be riveted by this new sen-sation (Adler & Adler, 1989; Hoffman & Ocasio,2001). Beyond consuming the CEO’s attention,rapidly obtaining celebrity is emotionally andcognitively jarring, bringing about blurred judg-ment (Nigam & Ocasio, 2010; Weick, 1995). Thenew, high level of acclaim is pleasurable, and theCEO will have difficulty seeing past it and strug-gle to effectivelyweigh or regulate their responsesto the adulation (Burke, 1991; Weick, Sutcliffe, &Obstfeld, 2005).The selectiveanddistortedattention that comes

with the rapid rise of celebrity is consistent withthe concept of “reflexion” in strategic decisionmaking (Hodgkinson & Healey, 2011). Reflexionrefers to the tendency to rely on automatic andintuitive thinking and decision making, as op-posed to more careful and reflective forms ofjudgment (Kahneman & Frederick, 2002; Stanovich& West, 2000). Prior research suggests that re-flexive styles of thinking are amplified in situa-tions of rapid and urgent change (Bundy & Pfarrer,2015; Kahneman & Frederick, 2002). We argue thatreflexionaccompaniesa rapid rise to celebrity andwill amplify its sociocognitive effects. It will in-crease a celebrity CEO’s confidence, as theCEO avoids amore reflective examination of theirabilities and instead relies on the media’s attri-butions and assessments. It will also increase feltsocial pressure resulting from typecasting, as in-tuitive feelings and the influence of expectationsoverpower critical reason and thought. Finally,reflexive reliance on intuition and gut reactionsenhances celebrity CEOs’ emboldened sense ofauthority, which is typically associated with anindividual’s increased reliance onmore automaticforms of information processing (Keltner et al.,2003). As a result, we propose the following.

Proposition 7: The greater the speed ofa CEO’s celebrity ascent, the strongerthe associations between degree of ce-lebrity of a given type and the socio-cognitiveoutcomes (increasedconfidenceto remain true to type, increased feltpressure to stay true to type, and in-creased sense of authority to act in type-specific ways).

FIGURE 3The Arc of Celebrity

Magnitudeof celebrity

Low

High

Time

Speedof

ascent

Duration


We also argue that the longer a CEO hasbeen a celebrity of a given type, the more pro-nounced the sociocognitive consequences ofthe CEO’s acclaim. For the CEO who only re-cently attained celebrity, there is indeed aheadiness that comes from all the new positiveattention (particularly if the rise is rapid); atthe same time, this acclaim can be construedas fleeting, or somehow not “real.” Moreover,the CEO may be aware that social arbiters,notably the media, have not yet firmly co-alesced in their portrayals of the CEO’s per-sona (Cowen, 2000; Gamson, 1994). Thus, thestrength of the social forces that influencecelebrity CEOs’ psychological experiences(e.g., social praise, expectations, and defer-ence) may be weaker at the beginning stagesof celebrity. Additionally, because of its new-ness, being a celebrity is less likely to havebecome a core part of the CEO’s identity, orglorified self (Adler & Adler, 1989; Stryker,1980). The longer CEOs are celebrities, themore likely they are to identify with the role ofcelebrity CEO and the archetype in which theyhave been cast, and, thus, the more likely theyare to see it as a core aspect of “who they are”(Ashforth, 2001; Stryker, 1980).

Further, as celebrity is sustained, and asmedia accounts of the CEO’s style of heroismaccumulate, the acclaim takes on an in-creased air of truthfulness in the CEO’s mindthat becomes difficult to dismiss or ignore(Hawkins & Hoch, 1992; Zajonc, 1968). The CEOwill be aware that their audience and the so-cial arbiters who feed the audience havea deeply etched image of the executive (whichthe CEO shares); thus, any violations of thisimage run great risks (Adler & Adler, 1989;Cowen, 2000). Additionally, the sustained ad-ulation will generate more stakeholder defer-ence toward the CEO than will occur after onlya brief period of celebrity as the CEO, board,and others take actions that consolidate theCEO’s influence (Hayward et al., 2004). An in-crease in deference will serve to increasethe celebrity CEO’s sense of authority andempowered sense of action. As examples,long-term celebrities such as Jack Welch,Warren Buffett, and Bill Gates are firmlycemented in the zeitgeist of American culture,so revered that many feel they “can do nowrong,” particularly when it comes to actions

consistent with their renown (Newsweek,2001). As such, we propose the following.

Proposition 8: The greater the duration(to date) of a CEO’s celebrity, the stron-ger the associations between degree ofcelebrity of a given type and the socio-cognitive outcomes (increased confi-dence to remain true to type, increasedfelt pressure to stay true to type, andincreased sense of authority to act intype-specific ways).

BEHAVIORAL CONSEQUENCES OF CELEBRITY

Wenow consider how the sociocognitive factorsandassociatedmoderatorsdetailedaboveserve toshackle or constrain celebrity CEOs’ behaviors.Because the CEO role is inherently complex andsteeped in uncertainty, prior experiences serve toguide the executive’s attention and subsequentactions (Hitt & Tyler, 1991; March & Simon, 1958).Hambrick and Fukutomi (1991) explained that ex-ecutives act in accordance with the prevailingparadigms of their priorities and recipes, and thattheir perceptions of their own strengths andweaknesses influence how they apply their para-digms to leading their organizations. They furtherproposed that CEOs vary in how psychologicallycommitted they are to their paradigms, and thatthis commitment tends to increase as their suc-cesses mount. As a logical extension, then, weargue that attaining celebrity constitutes anothervivid form of social success that causes evengreater psychological and behavioral commit-ment than the concrete business successes them-selves. Accordingly, we argue that celebrity CEOsare likely to persist in the behaviors associatedwith their type-specific celebrity and will evenexaggerate these behaviors as they seek to main-tain or increase their acclaim (Adler & Adler, 1989).

Persisting with Type-Specific Behaviors

The social and cognitive cues that elevatea celebrity CEO’s acclaim also encourage theCEO to persist in the same behaviors that led totheir celebrity in the first place (Hayward et al.,2004). First, the increased confidence associatedwith celebrity makes these CEOs less likely toseek new or alternative behaviors (Finkelsteinet al., 2009; Hambrick & Fukutomi, 1991; Miller,1991). Second, the media praise that creates


celebrity puts great pressure on these CEOs notonly to maintain their firms’ performance but alsoto sustain their own highly visible persona (Adler& Adler, 1989; Callero, 1994; Humphrey & Aime,2014; Jensen et al., 2012). This pressure is bothexternal, as the celebrity CEO feels typecast bystakeholders who expect the celebrity to act incertain ways (Biddle, 1986; Callero, 1994; Jensenet al., 2012), and internal, as the celebrity CEOseeks to maintain their “gloried self”-image andthe aggrandizement that accompanies it (Adler &Adler, 1989). Third, celebrity CEOs’ greater senseof authority leads them to act as they wish, mak-ing it easier for them topersist inactions that havegenerated celebrity (Hambrick & Fukutomi, 1991).And, as detailed above, a strong sense of author-ity is typically coupled with more heuristic formsof decision making (Keltner et al., 2003), increa-sing the likelihood that celebritieswill turn to tried-and-true practices.

Consider, for example, savior Ron Johnson’stenure as CEO of J. C. Penney. Johnson arrived atJ. C. Penneywith great acclaim for leading Apple’sretail storesandhadplans fora “radicalmakeover”of J. C. Penney’s fundamental strategy, which ulti-mately failed in part because the new initiativeswere never tested (Tuttle, 2013). Asked why he didnot test the tactics first, Johnson said, “We did nottest at Apple” (Tuttle, 2013). Sinha, Inkson, andBarker (2012) also described the persistent strate-gies of Air New Zealand’s savior celebrity CEO,Gary Toomey, who escalated his commitment toa failed acquisition in an attempt to replicate hissuccess at Qantas airlines. As Sinha and col-leagues noted, “Presumably he believed that hewas capable of taking up the challenge—a beliefreinforcedbyhisownpress” (2012: 238). Theauthorsargued that increased confidence, combined withsocial pressure to create an illusion of control, ul-timately led to the failed strategy, a costly govern-ment bailout, and Toomey’s ouster. Taking ourarguments together, we propose the following.

Proposition 9: The greater a CEO’s de-gree of celebrity of a given type, themore the CEO will persist in behaviorsassociated with that archetype. Thisassociation ismediated by the celebrityCEO’s (a) increased confidence to re-main true to type, (b) increased feltpressure to stay true to type, and (c) in-creased sense of authority to act in type-specific ways.

Exaggerating Type-Specific Behaviors

Celebrity not only increases the likelihood thatCEOs will persist in their current behaviors butalso causes them to engage in more extremeversions of these behaviors in the quest to main-tain their celebrity (Adler & Adler, 1989; Pollocket al., 2016; Rindova et al., 2006). As noted earlier, itis difficult to sustain the continued interest ofand positive emotional responses from stake-holder audiences on which celebrity depends(Rindova et al., 2006). This is because stake-holders’ expectations mount in response to pastactions and accomplishments (Mishina, Dykes,Block, & Pollock 2010) such that behaviors oncedeemed radical and attention grabbing may,over time, seem more pedestrian and com-monplace (Rindova et al., 2006; Zavyalova et al.,2017). Therefore, simply doing the same things orachieving the same results no longer seems ex-traordinary but instead becomes expected (Lant,1992).Because of this expectancy shift, celebrity

CEOswill be inclined tonot onlypersistwith type-specific behaviors but also to escalate them. First,the increased confidence that springs from ce-lebrity limits CEOs’ experimentation; thus, theyremain committed to the behaviors they believegenerated their social approval (Finkelstein et al.,2009; Miller, 1991). Second, as prior attention-getting activities fail to elicit the same positiveemotional responses from the media and otherstakeholders (Rindova et al., 2006; Zavyalovaet al., 2017), the social pressure on celebrityCEOs mounts to do something new and in-teresting. As such, celebrity CEOs will escalatetheir “proven” behaviors in order to recapturestakeholders’ attention and acclaim. Finally, thecelebrity CEOs’ enhanced sense of authorityeliminates any desire to seek or rely on checksand balances (Adler & Adler, 1989), increasingtheir willingness to engage in outsized actions.Dennis Kozlowski was once widely applauded

for his commitment to the aggressive actions thattransformed Tyco International into, at least fora time, a powerhouse conglomerate (Symonds,2001). Recognized for defying expectations,Kozlowski was obsessed with beating the oddsand achieving monumental growth, typically viaacquisitions (Bianco, Symonds, & Byrnes, 2002).Over time, he maintained his appeal by doublingdown on the aggressive acquisition behaviorthat led to his celebrity. However, Kozlowski was


eventually undone by his commitment to this ag-gressive approach after “a fandango of wrong-headed acquisitions and strategic U-turns thatdevastated Tyco’s share price even before his firstindictment” (Bianco et al., 2002). After his verypublic fall from grace, Kozlowski himself com-mented: “I shouldhavebeen contentwith farmoremodest growth in the company. . . . to be a morepedestrian CEO” (Hossli, 2009: 1). We argue thatincreased levels of confidence, felt social pres-sure, and perceptions of authority not only limitcelebrity CEOs to their type-specific behaviorsbut also encourage them to intensify their actionsto meet heightened expectations. In sum, wepropose the following.

Proposition 10: The greater a CEO’sdegree of celebrity of a given type, themore the CEO will exaggerate the be-haviors associated with that arche-type. This association is mediated bythe celebrity CEO’s (a) increased con-fidence to remain true to type, (b) in-creased felt pressure to stay true to type,and (c) increased sense of authority to actin type-specific ways.

CELEBRITY’S INFLUENCE ONORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE

Finally, drawing from the literature on “CEOseasons,” or the tendency for CEOs to go throughdiscernible phases during their time in office, weexpect that the behavioral tendencies of celebrityCEOs described above will have implicationsfor organizational performance. Formalized byHambrick and Fukutomi (1991), the central ideaof this theoretical perspective is that as CEOsaccumulate successes, and as their tenures cor-respondingly advance as a result of those suc-cesses, they become increasinglywedded to theirestablished formulas. Over time, CEOs becomecognitively rigid, or “stale in the saddle” (Miller,1991: 34). Firm performance depends on the rela-tive alignment between an executive’s charac-teristics and a firm’s strategic requirements(Gupta & Govindarajan, 1984; Thomas, Litschert,& Ramaswamy, 1991); thus, the more the externaland internal environments shift, the less appro-priate the CEO’s entrenched paradigm becomesand the greater the potential for organizationalperformancetosuffer (Henderson,Miller,&Hambrick,2006; Miller & Shamsie, 2001). For celebrity CEOs,

the cognitive and behavioral lock-in or shackles thataccompany success will be especially pro-nounced, and the performance implicationsmay be substantial.Persisting in and exaggerating prior actions

especially takes a toll on organizational perfor-mance if environmental conditions shift. Externalconditions (i.e., industry growth rates, technolog-ical intensity, buyer preferences, and competitiveintensity) often impose dominant requirementsfor firm success (Hambrick, 1981; Porter, 1980;Rumelt, 2011). If these conditions change, the for-mulas for success change as well. In this vein,consider Research In Motion’s creator CEO, MikeLazaridis. Lazaridis was hailed as the “geniusbehind the BlackBerry,” the popular keyboard-equipped mobile phone that dominated the in-dustry for a time (Silcoff, McNish, & Ladurantaye,2013). When buyer preferences shifted totouchscreen phones, Lazaridis proclaimed, “Idon’t get this,” because he couldn’t see why peo-ple would want to “type on glass,” and the com-pany failed to shift its strategy to meet newconsumer preferences and competitors’ newtechnologies (Silcoff et al., 2013).The ongoing suitability of a celebrity CEO’s

repertoire also depends on the continuity of thefirm’s internal conditions. As with external fac-tors, internal conditions (i.e., levels of perfor-mance and slack or company size) often imposedominant requirements for success (Hambrick,1981; Miles & Snow, 1978). If these conditionschange, new managerial approaches are typi-cally needed (Gupta & Govindarajan, 1984). Forinstance, consider the food-safety crisis at Chi-potle Mexican Grill. Rebel celebrity CEO SteveElls rose to prominence by combating fast-foodgiants and refusing to do things according to in-dustry norms, gaining renown for pursuinga “food-with-integrity” mission that involved lo-cal sourcing of ingredients whenever possibleand for helping pioneer the “fast casual” category(Safian, 2014). However, Ells’s relentless drive todeviate from industry normsdid not alignwith thenow large company’s challenges in maintainingquality control: “While the chain prides itself onsourcing from local and regional farmers, thatmeans a lot of moving parts, less oversight . . .[and] thus potentially higher risks” (Gross, 2016).Indeed, these issues have led to considerablenegative press for Ells and the company, andChipotle is no longer listed among the top fastcausal restaurant brands (Garcia, 2016).


All CEOs are somewhat vulnerable to the ob-solescence of their paradigms as internal andexternal environmental conditions shift (Hambrick& Fukutomi, 1991; Henderson et al., 2006; Miller,1991), but this risk is especially pronounced forcelebrity CEOs, who are additionally shackledby psychological and social pressures to persistwith and exaggerate their celebrity-generatingbehaviors. As such, shifting contextual condi-tions negatively amplify any baseline relation-shipbetweenCEOcelebrity and firmperformance.In contrast, if contextual conditions do not shift,persistence and exaggeration of prior behaviorswillhaveamoreneutralorperhapsevenapositiveinfluence on firm performance. Thus, we proposethe following.

Proposition 11: The relationship be-tween the behavioral outcomes associ-ated with a celebrity CEO archetypeand performance is moderated by thecontinuity of environmental conditions.Specifically, the greater the change inenvironmental conditions, the morelikely a celebrity-led firm’s perfor-mance will decline.

Proposition 12: The relationship be-tween the behavioral outcomes associ-ated with a celebrity CEO archetypeand performance is moderated by thecontinuity of internal firm conditions.Specifically, the greater the change ininternal conditions, the more likelya celebrity-led firm’s performance willdecline.

IMPLICATIONS

We have sought to delve deeper into the pro-cesses and consequences associated with CEOcelebrity. Primary among our contributions ismoving beyond treating celebrity as a homoge-nous phenomenon and instead recognizing mul-tiple celebrity archetypes. We also identified therole intensity of a celebrity CEO’s archetype, theCEO’s degree of narcissism, and the temporalarc of celebrity as key factors affecting how ce-lebrity is experienced. Thus, we extend currenttheory on CEO celebrity by relaxing many im-plicit assumptions of prior research and consid-ering the variance inherent in CEO celebrity.Finally, we integrate this variance into a nuanced

framework detailing the sociocognitive and be-havioral processes related to CEO celebrity,building on prior literature that has only hintedat these theoretical details. In doing so we are bet-ter able to explain the tendency for performancedeclines at many celebrity-led firms. We now con-sider the numerous theoretical and practicalimplications offered by our theory.

Theoretical and Research Implications

This article opens up a host of research possi-bilities. We place great stock in the premise thatdifferent types of celebrity engender differentbehaviors; thus, we especially encourage inqui-ries that pursue our ideas about various typesof celebrity. We have highlighted four celebrityarchetypes that we believe are exceptionallycommon, but we also expect that additional ar-chetypes could be identified. Scholars may beable to build on our conceptual grounding to de-ductively construct a more comprehensive set ofcelebrity CEO archetypes. To this end, we envi-sion researchers using a combination of methodsto further the investigation of celebrity CEO ar-chetypes. For example, we view the contentanalysis of media accounts as a high-potentialavenue for future research. Researchers coulddevelop keyword dictionaries for each type ofcelebrity and use these dictionaries to facilitatecomputer-aided text analysis. The use of expertpanels may be another option for researchersaiming to distinguish various celebrity arche-types. As we theorize, celebrity archetypes maybe tied to the organization’s life cycle. As such,organization size or age may be useful in direct-ing the identification of different types of celeb-rities by focusing researchers on specific timeperiods during which to utilize computer-aidedtext analysis. Researchers might also use clusteranalysis or similar methods to verify and extendour typology.While we focused on several individual-level

moderators that influence the sociocognitive by-products of celebrity, there is an opportunity tostudy how governance and other firm-level con-ditions may also moderate the effects of CEO ce-lebrity. Can celebrity CEOs be reined in? Shouldthey be reined in? Malmendier and Tate (2009)took initial steps down this path, but much moreneeds to be done. It would also be interesting toexplore the effects of CEO celebrity on gover-nance conditions. Upon becoming celebrities, do


CEOs have an increased likelihood of beingnamed board chair? Do they have heightened in-fluence over director appointments? Prior re-search has shown that attaining celebrity bringspay raises for CEOs (Malmendier & Tate, 2009;Wade et al., 2006), but we know little about howcelebrity might alter governance conditions morebroadly. Our theory suggests that the added def-erence and sense of authority that come with ce-lebrity should create more favorable governanceconditions for the celebrity CEO, but empiricaltesting should examine this in more detail.

Researchers also should consider the possibil-ity that certain combinations ofCEOcelebrityandpersonality give rise to highly distinctive out-comes. For instance, there may be additionaldispositional tendencies besides narcissism(e.g., openness to experience, conscientiousness)that amplify or dampen a CEO’s identificationwith the celebrity role and, through it, the cogni-tive and behavioral consequences of celebrity.Relatedly, there is a need for research to considerthe interrelationships between celebrity anddifferent types of social approval assets(e.g., reputation and status at both the firm andindividual levels) and related individual charac-teristics (e.g., hubris and charisma). Someof theseconcepts likely share similar antecedents, pro-cesses, and outcomes. Also, many of these con-structs are likely to display nonrecursive andinterdependent relationships with one another(Pollock, Lee, Jin, & Lashley, 2015). For example, itis easy to see how an executive with a strongreputation may make it easier for the media tocast them into one of our celebrity archetypes.Teasing out the longitudinal relationships amongthese related concepts offers an excellent oppor-tunity for future research (Love, Lim, & Bednar,2017; Pollock et al., 2015).

We have argued that different celebrity CEOarchetypes are associated with specific stages ofthe organizational life cycle, but we also havenoted that there are rare instances (e.g., SteveJobs) where the same individual is cast in differ-ent archetypes at different phases of the life cycle.It is possible that long-tenured CEOs, CEOs wholeave and return later to the same firm, or CEOswho serve as CEOs of different firms are mostlikely to be cast in different celebrity archetypes.It may also be the case that celebrity CEOs whoare able to adapt and evolve their celebrity astheir firm moves through different life stages willbemost able to extend their careers and celebrity.

Whether each celebrity archetype has its ownarc,or whether a CEO’s overall arc of celebrity can beconceptualized across multiple celebrity rolesand firms, is another interesting avenue for futureresearch and theorizing.Complementing our main interest in the con-

sequences of CEO celebrity is the need to un-derstand its antecedents. Extending the frameworkset forth by Hayward and colleagues (2004), wecan envision additional factors that contribute tothe likelihood a CEO will attain celebrity. Forexample, we expect that CEOs in dynamic andvisible industries (e.g., media, technology, air-lines) are more likely to attain social acclaimthan are those in more mundane or obscure in-dustries (e.g., utilities, mining, heavymachinery,forest products). Similarly, CEOs of well-knownfirms aremore likely to be featured by themediathan are CEOs of less well-known firms. Andcharismatic CEOs with loyal followers who canserve as apostles by spreading the word of theirgreatness (Galvin et al., 2010) may also be morelikely to become celebrities. Additionally, wecould imagine that CEOs’ personal attributes(e.g., age, gender, personal appearance, accu-mulated wealth, or personal histories) could addgreat color to journalists’ accounts, contributing totheir likelihood of being featured by the media.Perhaps most intriguing of all is the role

that CEOs can take in engineering their owncelebrity. As we have argued, it is likely thatself-promotion—eagerness to be interviewed,insistence on prominence in company pressreleases, and so forth—can influence the likeli-hood that a CEObecomes a celebrity. It would beinteresting to explore the degree to which ce-lebrities who seek acclaim for personal reasonsdiffer from thosewho seekacclaim for their firms’benefit. For example, a CEOmay view becominga celebrity as “part of the job,” despite personalhesitation to be pushed into the limelight. Pur-suing celebrity to advance others (in this case thefirm) may ameliorate some of the sociocognitiveand behavioral tendencies detailed above. Al-ternatively, a CEO who feels pressure to attaincelebrity as part of the jobmay bemore sensitiveto the sociocognitive consequences of celebrity,once achieved. It would also be interesting toassess whether individuals choose to pursueparticular celebrity archetypes. We see theseand other questions related to the pursuit ofcelebrity to be promising grounds for futurecontribution.


Finally, we believe that our theory has impli-cations for the broader literature on celebrity andsocial acclaim in sociology, psychology, andsocial psychology (e.g., Ferris, 2007; Greenwoodet al., 2013; Maltby, 2010). For example, we envi-sion that our framework detailing the socio-cognitive and behavioral shackles of celebrityeasily extends beyond the context of businessexecutives,with great relevance for the realms ofentertainment, sports, politics, and other areas ofleadership; however, the archetypes and asso-ciated arenas of actions, attributions, and ad-versaries are likely to vary across contexts.While the labels and descriptions ultimatelydeveloped may be different, the processes asso-ciated with celebrity attainment are similar;a sports hero, politician, or general who is castinto a specific role is likely to feel the shackles ofcelebrity following the process we have outlinedabove.

Practical Implications

Although the primary purpose of this article istheoretical, it also has significant practical im-plications. Foremost, our ideas should alertboards to the risks of having celebrity CEOs.Not all celebrityCEOsbringabout poor outcomes,but evidence suggests that many—perhaps themajority—do (Malmendier & Tate, 2009; Wadeet al., 2006), and we have attempted to explicatehowandwhy these negative results occur. Boardsmight address the problems of CEO celebrity ei-ther structurally, throughheightenedvigilance, orvia carefully designed incentives.

For instance, a celebrity CEO may be counter-balancedbyan independent board chair or stronglead director (Finkelstein & D’Aveni, 1994; Krause,Semadeni, & Cannella, 2014). At a minimum, theprocess of nominating new directors should be asindependent from a celebrity CEO’s control aspossible (Hambrick,Misangyi,&Park, 2015).Aswehave discussed, celebrity CEOs are grantedmore deference and take on an increased senseof authority, so boardsmay face stiff resistance tosuch monitoring initiatives; research has sug-gested, however, that strong governance canmitigate the drawbacks of celebrity (Malmendier& Tate, 2009).

Politically, it may be more feasible to use in-centives to steer celebrity CEOs’ behaviors. It iswell known that incentive structures can greatlyinfluence CEO attention and behaviors (Devers,

Cannella, Reilly, & Yoder, 2007; Sanders &Hambrick, 2007); accordingly, we expect that paypackages could be designed to offset some ce-lebrity CEOs’ harmful tendencies. For instance,perhaps heavy doses of restricted stock (Pollock,Fischer & Wade, 2002) could help to countervailthe tendencies for savior celebrities to overrely onthe cost-cutting and short-termism behaviors thatearned them their acclaim. Conversely, perhapssuch risk-inducing incentives should be held toa minimum for creator celebrities, in favor of an-nual bonuses that would focus these leaders onnear-term profits (Balkin, Markman, & Gomez-Mejia, 2005).Our ideas also have implications for celebrity

CEOs’ TMTs. TMT members generally benefitfrom their associations with star CEOs, both interms of their compensation and their prospectsfor CEOpositions themselves (Graffin et al., 2008).However, these executives may sometimes needto vocally assert themselves to counter their ce-lebrity bosses’ tendencies to overrely on theiracclaimed repertoires. It is also interesting toconsider the expectations that may be placed onTMT members based on the types of celebrityCEOs they worked under. As mentioned above,Ron Johnson achieved acclaim for working withSteve Jobs to createApple’s retail chain. However,after being named CEO at J. C. Penney, many ofthe expectations placed on Johnson reflected theexpectations set for Jobs. Tapped to be a savior atJ.C. Penney, it is likely that Johnson was cogni-tively and socially shackled into his creator roleat Apple, thus rendering him unable to enact theturnaround tactics needed to reframe the retailgiant. Some of the current criticisms of Tim Cookat Apple also seem to be rooted in Jobs’s celebrityarchetype. Thus, the enduring influence of a ce-lebrity boss is an important consideration for TMTmembers.Finally, we would be remiss if we failed to note

the implications of our ideas for CEOs them-selves. Attaining celebrity is personally gratify-ing and heady; moreover, celebrity is typicallyaccompanied by increased financial rewards(Wade et al., 2006). At the same time, though, ce-lebrity CEOs become susceptible to flawed de-cisionmaking, particularly tending to overrely onprior proven formulas,which, in turn, createmajorrisks for their companies and for them. For ce-lebrity CEOs who are capable of detached in-trospection, we encourage ongoing alertness thatacclaim is a double-edged sword.


Conclusion

CEOcelebrity is an importantphenomenon thathas significant implications for organizationsandtheir leaders. Our article sets forth a new theoryfor understanding the consequences of CEO ce-lebrity by identifying different archetypes of ce-lebrity personas that are constructed by themedia, and by further describing how each typesets off a cascade of accompanying tendencies.We have elaborated on the sociocognitive pro-cesses that drive celebrity CEOs’ behaviors andwhen and how these are likely to affect firm per-formance.Weurge empirical testing of our theory,as well as inquiries into related ideas that thisarticle surfaces.

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Jeffrey B. Lovelace ([email protected]) is anassistant professor of commerceat theMcIntire School of Commerce, University of Virginia. He received his Ph.D. from ThePennsylvania State University. His research interests focus on the sensemaking processof leaders and how factors like celebrity, status, and reputation influence leader cogni-tion, behavior, and performance.

Jonathan Bundy ([email protected]) is an assistant professor of management intheW. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. He received his Ph.D. fromthe University of Georgia. His research investigates the social and cognitive forces thatshape organizational outcomes, with a focus on social evaluations, crisis management,stakeholder management, and corporate governance.

Donald C. Hambrick ([email protected]) is Evan Pugh University Professor and SmealChaired Professor of Management, Smeal College of Business, The Pennsylvania StateUniversity.HeholdsaPh.D. fromThePennsylvaniaStateUniversity.His research focusesprimarily on the study of top executives and their effects on strategy and performance.

Timothy G. Pollock ([email protected]) is the Haslam Chair in Business and Distin-guished Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Tennessee–Knoxville. He re-ceived his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His researchfocuses onhow reputation, celebrity, social capital,mediaaccounts, andpower influencecorporate governance and strategic decision making in entrepreneurial firms and thesocial construction of entrepreneurial markets.


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THE SHACKLES OF CEO CELEBRITY: … · broadly, the question remains: Why does CEO celebrity, which the executive labor market seems to value, ... age our CEO in their quest for celebrity?