CEOs and Political Donations: Are They Just Like Regular People?

Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings includes abstracts of all papers and symposia presented at the annual conference, plus 6-page abridged versions of the “Best Papers” accepted for inclusion in the program (approximately 10%). Papers published in the Proceedings are abridged because presenting papers at their full length could preclude subsequent journal publication. Please contact the author(s) directly for the full papers. CEOs and Political Donations: Are They Just Like Regular People?Benjamin Barber Iv and Daniel BlakeBenjamin Barber IvIE Business School and Daniel BlakeIE Business SchoolPublished Online:24 Jul 2023https://doi.org/10.5465/AMPROC.2023.11766abstractAboutSections ToolsDownload CitationsAdd to favoritesTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail AbstractWhy do CEOs make political donations? The literature offers two competing explanations: a) CEOs make donations as "investments" in order to gain access to politicians for the benefit of their firms; b) CEOs view donations as "consumption" and make donations to support the candidates whose ideological positions reflect their own. We provide a more nuanced treatment of CEOs' motives with respect to donations that adjudicates between these perspectives. We argue that CEOs value access more than the average donor, and therefore they are more likely to make donations for access. However, the extent to which CEOs value access varies as a function of regulatory intensity, equity share of CEO compensation, and firm performance, causing CEOs to vary from one another in their donations. We test our arguments using a dataset on the donations of CEOs of S&P 1500 firms from 1990 to 2014. We find strong evidence that CEOs are much more likely to donate for access than the average donor, and that CEOs' prioritization of investment over consumption varies systematically.FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Vol. 2023, No. 1 Permissions Metrics in the past 12 months History Published online 24 July 2023 Published in print 1 August 2023 InformationCopyright of Academy of Management Journal is the property of Academy of Management and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder’s express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.KeywordsAOM Annual Meeting Proceedings 2023AOM Boston 2023Strategic Management