A Study Of The Relations Between CEO Succession And Firm Performance Of Chinese Listed Companies

First and foremost, the paper has a literature review concerning the research field of CEO succession and finds that plenty of scholars have done the research on the relation between the origin of CEO successor and the post-succession performance, but their results have failed to be consistent, to some extent, with one another. Accordingly, the paper brings forward the major study objective:the relations between the origin of CEO successor and firm performance of Chinese listed companies.Then, the paper reviews, analyzes and summarize the theory of board capital and finds that there is a possibility that board capital has a theoretically moderating effect on the relations between the origin of CEO successor and firm performance. Based on several related theoretical supports, the paper utilizes board capital as a moderating variable to further study the relations between the origin of CEO successor and firm performance.Next, according to the previous literature review and theoretical analysis, the paper selects Chinese listed companies from both Shenzhen and Shanghai A-share markets as research samples and applies hierarchical regression analysis method to empirically analyze the relations between the origin of CEO successor and firm performance and the moderating effect of board capital on their relations.Finally, drawing on the previous theories, methods and data, the paper finds:1. When CEO successor is an outsider, he/she would have a positive effect on firm performance;when CEO successor is an insider, he/she would have a negative effect on firm performance.2. The stronger the board capital breadth is, the weaker the negative effect of an insider has on firm performance;the stronger the board capital breadth is, the weaker the positive effect of an outsider has on firm performance.3. When dependent variable is measured by ROA, the stronger the board capital depth is, the stronger the negative effect of an insider has on firm performance; the stronger the board capital depth is, the stronger the positive effect of an outsider has on firm performance. 4.When dependent variable is measured by EPS, the moderating effect of board capital depth on the relations between the origin of CEO successor and firm performance is not significant.