Who's in charge here? Co-CEOs, power gaps, and firm performance

At the pinnacles of organizations, comparative tests of unity of command and shared command are nearly impossible because only one individual sits atop most organizations. In organizations led by co-CEOs, however, such a test is possible because co-CEOs can truly share power. But do they? Our research pits the unity-of-command principle against the shared-command principle and finds overall support for the former, even within the co-CEO context. Our sample of 71 co-CEO pairs at publicly traded U.S. firms shows that increasing power gaps between co-CEOs are positively associated with firm performance. This positive association wanes and turns negative, however, as power gaps become very large. We conclude that whatever benefits the co-CEO structure might offer likely lie outside the shared command paradigm. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.