University of Groningen - Faculty of Economics and Business 21st June, 2013
Master Thesis International Business and Management
Course Code: EBM719A20Supervisor: Dr. Kees van Veen
Author: Esther Groenert
S-number: S2134012
Address: Winschoterdiep 1014 B 9723 AC Groningen The Netherlands
Email: e.groenert@student.rug.nl
CEO Career Profiles in Europe
Abstract
Typical career backgrounds and paths of CEOs vary from one country to another due to differences in social institutions. A variety of research studies looked into career profiles of the business elite and proved that they have nationally distinctive characteristics. This study shows that educational backgrounds of contemporary CEOs in France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom are nationally distinct whilst career progression and personal characteristics vary both within and across countries. Overall, this confirms that the typical national CEO in Europe has not changed much over the past decade.
Globalisation and the proceeding internationalisation of European boards have resulted in more and more internationals being recruited as CEOs for Europe’s largest companies.
This research study therefore analyses to what extent these international CEOs have to match the career profiles of their national counterparts. The findings indicate that career profiles of international and national CEOs are actually more different than similar. This means that international CEOs do not need follow a career path similar to the nationally distinctive one in order to make it to a top position within that country. Furthermore, a typical career profile of the international CEO in Europe seems to be emerging. The most distinctive feature of this profile is an MBA degree.
Acknowledgments
At this point I would like to express my gratitude to everyone who supported me throughout my master’s degree and during the process of writing this thesis.
Especially, I want to thank my supervisor Dr. Kees van Veen for continuous advice, feedback, constructive criticism and keeping me enthusiastic about my research topic. Furthermore, I would like to thank Logan Gittelson, my friends and family for keeping me motivated and helping me when needed.
Esther Groenert,
Table of Contents
1. Introduction 7 1.1 The CEO 7 1.2 Problem Statement 8 2. Literature Background 10 2.1 CEO Careers 10
2.1.1 Career Backgrounds and Characteristics 10
2.1.2 Career Mobility 14
2.2 Country-Specific Career Profiles 16
2.2.1 France 16 2.2.2 Germany 17 2.2.3 The Netherlands 18 2.2.4 United Kingdom 19 2.3 Globalisation Effects 21 2.4 Conclusion 23 3. Research Questions 25
3.1 Main Research Question 25
5.3 Data Collection 36 5.4 Statistical Analyses 37 5.4.1 Descriptive Analysis 37 5.4.2 Cluster Analysis 38 5.4.3 Regression Analysis 40 6. Empirical Results 42 6.1 Descriptive Analysis 42 6.1.1 Total Sample 42 6.1.1.1 Nationality Diversity 42 6.1.1.2 Career Mobility 45 6.1.2 National CEOs 46 6.1.2.1 France 46 6.1.2.2 Germany 46 6.1.2.3 The Netherlands 47 6.1.2.4 United Kingdom 47 6.1.3 International CEOs 48 6.1.3.1 France 49 6.1.3.2 Germany 49 6.1.3.3 The Netherlands 50 6.1.3.4 United Kingdom 50 6.2 Cluster Analyses 51
6.2.1 Cluster Analysis Educational Profile 51
6.2.2 Cluster Analysis Career Progression Profile 54 6.2.3 Cluster Analysis Complete Career Profile 57
6.2.4 Main Findings of Cluster Analyses 61
6.3 Regression Analysis 63
6.3.1 Firm Size and Industry Effects 63
6.3.2 Country Effects 65
7. Discussion 68
7.1 Discussion of Empirical Results 68
7.3 Future Research 75
8. Conclusion 78
9. Bibliography 80
10. APPENDIX 87
APPEDIX I – Elite Institutions 88
APPENDIX IA – France 88
APPENDIX IB – Germany 90
APPENDIX IC – United Kingdom 91
APPENDIX II – List of Companies 92
APPENDIX III - Final Sample 94
APPENDIX IV – SPSS Codebook 100
APPENDIX V – Descriptive Analyses Tables 102
APPENDIX VA – Total Sample 102
APPENDIX VB – Nationals 104
1. Introduction
1.1 The CEO
The chief executive officer (CEO), who is usually referred to as the most important person in a company, has “to ensure that all resources of the company are committed to strategies that maximise the growth of the economic profits over time” (Kontes, 2010, p.5). But there are many other roles the CEO has to perform, including informational, interpersonal, decisional, operational, strategic and diplomacy roles (Glick, 2011). Comparing the CEO to subordinate managers it becomes clear that these roles must be particularly unique and important and ultimately, the CEO makes sense of everything the company does (Jonas, Fry and Srivastva, 1989).
The importance of the CEO for the company has made him the focal point for a variety of research studies, one branch of studies for example looks at the link between the CEO and firm performance. Zajak (1990) found that a set of CEO related variables, such as the CEO having a specific successor in mind, could explain almost 20% of variance in firm performance. Furthermore, Beatty and Zajac (2006) highlight how announcements of CEO changes are associated with a reduction in firm value.
Other studies look at the antecedents to these CEO effects. Tedlow, Purrington and Bettcher (2003, p.29) point out “because the CEO is so important to understanding the firm, one must understand the mechanisms through which an individual becomes CEO”. By this they mean that not only the CEOs personal traits and his influence on the firm are interesting to research but also his background and career path.
The cultural and social capital future CEOs acquire throughout their career is based on membership in social institutions such as families, educational institutions and corporate and professional organisations (Maclean, Harvey and Press, 2006). As these social institutions differ between countries, typical career backgrounds and paths of CEOs also vary from one country to another. Additionally, they are likely to vary between those CEOs that were born in the country they now work in and those CEOs coming from abroad.
interesting research subject. Therefore, this research paper will look at the career paths of national and international CEOs in Europe, more particularly in France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The following section will further elaborate on the specific research problem.
1.2 Problem Statement
Most previous studies looking at CEO career profiles are heavily U.S.-biased (cf. for example Temin, 1997; Cappelli and Hamori, 2008 and Martelli and Abels, 2010). But even studies that include Europe, for example Hamori (2008), tend to treat Europe as one homogeneous mass, not taking into account inter-country variations and distinct national characteristics of CEO career paths within Europe. Findings from a thorough literature review (see section 2.2) focusing on France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, however, clearly show that there are distinct country-specific career profiles of CEOs and the general business elite within Europe.
Furthermore, there are several studies that indicate increasing nationality diversity within European top management that has most likely also resulted in increasing numbers of international CEOs (cf. for example Van Veen and Elbertsen, 2008 and Oxelheim et al., 2013). Research links the increasing numbers of “foreign” candidates (from here onwards referred to as internationals) being considered and recruited as top managers and CEOs to globalisation.
Table 1 – International CEOs in Europe
The table above (Table 1) mentions a few examples of international CEOs in the largest
Country Company CEO + Nationality
France Sanofi Chris Viehbacher - German/Canadian
Renault-Nissan-Alliance Carlos Ghosn - Brazilian/Lebanese
Germany Bayer AG Marijn Dekkers - Dutch
SAP AG Jim H. Snabe and Bill McDermott – Danish and American
The Netherlands Heineken Jean-Francois van Boxmeer - Belgium
Royal Dutch Shell Peter Voser - Swiss
United Kingdom BP Bob Dudley - American
companies of the four European countries this research study will focus on and hence provides some initial evidence for the existence of nationality diversity amongst European CEOs.
Combining these internationalisation trends with the profound differences in the average traditional career profile of a CEO and the business elite in general between the four chosen European countries (see section 2.2), it will be interesting to see whether those international CEOs are required to follow similar career paths in order to be recruited as a CEO in the respective country. In the following text this will be described as “matching the career profiles”. For example, businessmen might have to obtain a doctorate degree in order to be considered as a candidate for a CEO position in Germany. Alternatively, these international CEOs could be a completely new breed of business elite with their own distinctive characteristics.
Furthermore, since most studies regarding top manager career profiles in Europe were conducted in the late 1990s - early 2000s (e.g. Maclean, Harvey and Press, 2006 – based on data from 1998) it will also be interesting to see whether the increase in international recruitment has resulted in changing traditions of national CEO career profiles and CEO career profiles in general. This also links to Mayer and Whittington’s (1999) predictions about a European elite that will replace the country-specific business elites in Europe with their distinctive profiles.
Overall this shows that there is clearly a research gap in comparing career profiles of modern CEOs within Europe.
2. Literature Background
The literature review will start by looking at career profiles of CEOs and the business elite in general. First, there will be a general outline of CEO career backgrounds and characteristics. Whilst most of the studies in this part are based on U.S. data, they still help to get a general idea about typical CEO career paths and how they have changed over the past century. Furthermore, they will indicate which specific aspects of the career profile should be included as variables in this research study.
A second part of the literature review will look into career profiles within the four European countries chosen for this research, namely France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Later the findings from this section will be compared to the empirical findings in order to see if typical career profiles within the four European countries have changed over time.
The third part of the literature review highlights the effects of globalisation on CEOs, pointing out potential changing trends in CEO career profiles.
To conclude, there will be a summary of the findings and an explanation of how they link to this research study.
2.1 CEO Careers
2.1.1 Career Backgrounds and Characteristics
This first section of the literature review will look at a variety of studies that analysed and discussed CEO and, more generally, business elite careers in different contexts. Most of these studies are heavily U.S.-biased as well as descriptive in their nature.
However, Temin (1997) also highlighted that access to this business elite used to be more open in the U.S. than in Europe with 10% of people born into the working class making it to elite positions in the U.S. in contrast to only 5% in Europe (based on 1960 data). Furthermore, 20% of Americans from middle class families managed to work themselves up to the business elite compared to less than 10% in Britain, France and Germany (Blau and Duncan, 1967, cited by Temin, 1997). This indicates that it is likely that internationals in Europe have to match certain standards in order to make it to the top positions in business.
A later study by Friedman and Tedlow (2003) reviewed several studies discussing the careers of American executives. One particular interesting paper they found was one on career backgrounds based on statistics by the economist Newcomer (1955). One of Newcomer’s main findings was that there was a growing professionalism amongst American executives with 76% having attended college by 1950. Three-fifth of the executives she included in her research had worked for many years within the company in which they reached a top executive position. She summarised a typical executive career as following: “While still relatively young and inexperienced he obtained a minor position with the corporation that he eventually headed […]. Although he has had specialised professional training, he has never practised independently […]. He is a business administrator […] with little job experience outside his own corporation” (Newcomer cited by Friedman and Tedlow, 2003, pp.100-101). This shows that internal recruitment was relatively common during that period in the U.S.. Therefore, the findings from this study show that it will be interesting to include a variable for internal or external recruitment in this research.
also be more open towards “foreigners” as CEOs due to limited language barriers. “Openness” could also reduce the importance for international CEOs to match the career profiles of their national counterparts.
A 2005 study by Cappelli and Hamori looked at the characteristics of U.S. top executives and how they changed over time. One important finding they made was that “the average Fortune 100 top executive in 2001 was more than four years younger than the top executive in 1980 and slightly more educated, at least as measured by years in school” (2005, p.3). A typical male executive was on average 52 years old, worked for approximately 4 years at each of his jobs and needed around 25 years from his very first position to his current one. These findings show that executives are moving up faster than they used to. Also, the number of companies an executive would work for on his way to the top has decreased. They also highlighted that in the 1980s Ivy League undergraduate degrees were common amongst U.S. executives, whilst in 2001 companies seemed more open to publicly schooled candidates. These findings show that it will be interesting to include a variable indicating the number of companies worked for as well as one looking at the importance of elite institutions as part of the European CEO’s career profile.
Cappelli and Hamori (2005) also made some striking predictions about CEO characteristics in the future. They highlighted how graduate training in business and MBAs have become much more important for access to the top jobs and that there was an increase in people obtaining a second degree after four years of college, which tended to be MBAs and law degrees. Therefore, it will be interesting for this research to see if MBAs are part of a typical national CEO career profile or if they are required of internationals in any of the four countries.
general managerial skills. Again, this shows that MBAs might be a relatively common form of education amongst contemporary top managers.
Research by Martelli and Abels (2010) looked at the educational backgrounds of Fortune 500 CEOs (U.S.). They found that 93% of Fortune 500 CEOs had at least a bachelor’s degree and 55% were holding a master’s degree. However, only 5.2% were holding a doctorate degree, indicating that higher education levels might not necessarily result in greater career success. Looking at subject backgrounds, 47% of undergraduate degrees obtained by CEOs were in business programmes, 10.9% from Ivy League elite schools. More specifically, 82% of CEOs with a business related degree had studied business administration, economics or accounting (rather than marketing, human resources, etc.). Amongst those CEOs with a master’s degree, 66% were holding an MBA in business administration and management. This shows that it will be interesting to explore if there are differences in the highest degree level achieved amongst CEOs in Europe. The findings from this study also confirm the importance of including an MBA variable.
Another descriptive study was conducted by Flynn and Quinn (2010) and again, they also looked at educational backgrounds of CEOs. Their main finding was that an economics major “is a good choice for prospective CEOs” (Flynn and Quinn, 2010, p.69). In 2004 the share of S&P 500 CEOs with an economics major was greater than for any other major (particularly engineering and business administration), assuming that those with an economics major have a better chance to become a CEO. Another finding the authors made was that those who aspire to become a CEO should attend graduate school and consider obtaining an MBA. This was based on the finding that 73.9% of CEOs with undergraduate degrees in economics also had a graduate degree and 54.4% were holding an MBA. This study shows that business and management degrees could be more common than other degree subjects amongst CEOs and hence degree subject should be included as part of the overall career profile.
U.S. to Europe was that many “myths” have developed around CEOs in particular countries.
Hamori’s (2008) study refuted the myth that European CEOs were more conservative than their U.S. counterparts, by showing that CEOs in Europe are actually slightly younger (average of 2 years) and that the presence of female CEOs is equally scarce in Europe compared to the U.S.. With regards to formal education, Hamori (2008) found that there are only marginal differences between time spent in education of American and European CEOs and that having spent more years in education shortens the time to the top. Looking at career progression, European CEOs were more likely to be externally recruited after having worked for an average of three companies. Overall, she argued that her findings prove that the cliché of the conservative and traditional European executive was not true any more and that CEOs in Europe are as modern and contemporary as their American counterparts.
However, a major limitation of this study is that it treats Europe as one country rather than individual countries. Therefore, her study gives no indication as to whether there are inter-country variations amongst European countries. CEOs might follow more traditional career paths in one European country, but a more similar path to their U.S. counterparts in another. This proves that there is a research gap in this area, which this study aims to fill.
2.1.2 Career Mobility
This section will look at studies that go into more detail about the recruitment of CEOs, particularly internal versus external recruitment and how mobile the business elite is. The reason why this is interesting for this research is that it might increase the chance for an international to be recruited as CEO if the company looks to recruit someone from outside. Furthermore, due to the higher risk of adverse selection when appointing outsiders (externally recruited CEOs), candidates are thoroughly evaluated (Shen and Cannella, 2002) and career profiles including the educational background will play an important role in this evaluation process.
labour market strategy might take longer to reach the top than insiders, because insiders have firm-specific skills and tacit knowledge.
Their study also compared CEO career paths between Europe and the U.S.. Their findings indicated that European CEOs experience higher mobility than their U.S. counterparts and they were also less likely to spend their whole career at the same organisation. More importantly, they pointed out that a relationship that still needs to be tested is whether professionals with “specific qualifications such as an MBA degree are more successful when pursuing an external labour market strategy” (Hamori and Kakarika, 2009, p.375). Again, this confirms that it is important to include variables for MBA and external/internal recruitment in this research, as they seem to be an important part of other CEO career profile studies.
Going into more detail about external labour market strategies or so-called “job-hopping”, Hamori (2010) argued that this is not necessarily a successful strategy. Looking at a large sample of CEOs in the U.S. and Europe, she found that CEOs on average have worked for only three employers throughout their whole career. One quarter of the sample had spent their entire career at the same company but this number was decreasing. Those who did stay with one company, however, made it to the top faster. Additionally, she also found that a job change (internal or external) did not necessarily mean a promotion and that changes were often lateral. Finally, her research showed that changing jobs into a new industry was less common, with only 29% of moves taking place across industries. Again, this research treats Europe as one country instead of many. Therefore, it will be interesting to include number of companies worked for as a variable in this research to see if job-hopping is more popular amongst national or international CEOs as well as whether there are differences between the four European countries.
skills is that they are a rough proxy for transferable managerial ability. Again, this highlights the importance of including MBAs as a separate variable in this research.
2.2 Country-Specific Career Profiles
The following paragraphs outline the findings of previous research on distinct national career profiles (including personal characteristics, educational background and career progression) of CEOs and top managers in France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. This section will help establishing hypotheses for the research study and provide an opportunity for comparison later on.
2.2.1 France
Maclean, Harvey and Press’s (2006) extensive research on business elites based on 1998 data provides a very deep insight into the career profiles of French top managers. Starting with personal characteristics, they found that French top 100 directors won their position on the board at the relatively young age of 40, on average. Comparing the male/female representation it was found that 98% of all top 100 directors in 1998 were male. Looking at the social background of the French top managers, Hartmann (1997) found that most of them stem from the classe dominante (upper class) (82 CEOs out of the 100 biggest French companies), meaning from families of businessmen, scholars and senior officials.
A very interesting part of the career profile is the educational background. Looking at degree level, 80% of the top 100 directors in 1998 in France had obtained a higher degree whilst only 10% had a doctorate.
Furthermore, the characteristics of the study institution gave an indication of the prevalence of elitism in a country. Out of the top 100 French directors, 88% studied at an elite institution, 59.2% at one of the top 10 institutions. This clearly indicated that the place of education played an important role in France. Schmidt (1993) who also studied the profiles of French CEOs supported this notion of elitism and his main finding was that French CEOs changed little during the past decade despite major changes in the French business world. The top managers were still mostly graduates of elite professional schools with prestigious civil service corps membership.
Finally, to complete the profile of the traditional French top manager, career progression is an interesting area for comparison. Maclean, Harvey and Press’s (2006) data showed that French top 100 directors had only worked for an average of 2.22 companies before being appointed to their director role, clearly highlighting that job-hopping in France is not the best means of securing a position on the board. This was also supported by Barsoux and Lawrence (1991) who point out that “for the most part, companies grow their own timber”, meaning a preference for internal recruitment.
2.2.2 Germany
Starting with personal characteristics of German CEOs, a study by Schild and Herrendorf (2009) showed that in 2008 the average age of recruitment of a DAX CEO in Germany was 52.32, which had not changed much in recent decades (1988 the average age was 52.37). Analysing gender diversity, a study by Rieck et al. (2012) showed that by the end of October 2011 only 15% of DAX supervisory board members were female. Whilst the study did not include data about German CEOs, the relatively low percentage of female supervisory board members leads to the assumption that the number of female CEOs is also relatively low in Germany. The social background of German top managers was not as elitist as in France, but still most of them came from families of businessmen, owners of large estates, scholars and senior officials (Hartmann, 1997).
A 2012 study by Roland Berger gave a comprehensive overview of career profiles of DAX-30 CEOs. It clearly showed that with 90% of DAX-30 CEOs having a university degree and more than half of them having done research and obtained a doctorate degree; educational credentials play an important role in Germany.
Looking at degree subjects, roughly half of the DAX-30 CEOs had studied a business-related subject, followed by around one quarter having studied engineering. Only 10.5% of those CEOs had an MBA degree, however, since MBAs have only been introduced in Germany in 1998 this result is not surprising.
Looking at the importance of the characteristics of the study institution, the Roland Berger study showed that 19.7% of DAX-30 CEOs had studied at an elite institution, however their definition of elite institutions only included foreign schools in the United States, France and Switzerland. This shows that elite institutions might play a less important role in Germany, at least compared to France and the United Kingdom. It seems to be more valued to “have” the degree and good grades rather than the place the degree was obtained at.
The Roland Berger study also provided insights on the typical career progression of German CEOs. 30.9% of German CEOs stayed in the same company throughout their whole career, showing that internal recruitment is not uncommon. 41.4%, however, changed firm staying within the same industry whilst 27.6% changed firms as well as industry.
2.2.3 The Netherlands
In contrast to the other three European countries, research on distinctive CEO and top manager career profiles for the Netherlands has been limited. However, it will be interesting to include the Netherlands in this study because previous research has shown that the nationality diversity of top management teams in the Netherlands is particularly high (see section 2.3 for reasons why this is important for this study). Van Veen and Elbertsen (2008) for example found that with 44.3% the Netherlands had the highest proportion of foreigners on boards in comparison to Germany and the United Kingdom.
Glunk, Heijltjes and Olie (2001) looked at executive boards in Great Britain, Denmark and the Netherlands. For the Netherlands (30 largest Dutch companies in 1998), they found that the average top management team member was 55 (range from 43-64), male, and usually a Dutch-national (78%). He had entered the board at 48 on average and his tenure was approximately 5.75 years. Furthermore, 29% of the top managers were hired externally, whilst 41% had worked for the company for more than 10 years. Looking at education of board members the authors found that the most popular study background was engineering (23.3%) followed by business (22.1%), economics (19.8%) and law (17.4%).
Another study mentioning career characteristics of the Dutch business elite is a 2009 one by Heemskerk and Fennema. By business elite the two authors meant individuals who sat on supervisory or executive boards. They found out that whilst people with an aristocratic background dominated the business elite before the Second World War, by 1962 this had decreased to 50% and in the mid-1990s only very few so-called “big linkers” of this elite came from aristocratic families. The authors also found that the Netherlands did not have a “well-defined elite educational trajectory” and this lack of elite schools had “facilitated the replacement of the aristocracy on the corporate boards by directors without an aristocratic background (Heemskerk and Fennema, 2009, p.813-814). The new business elite therefore embraced one’s individual and personal qualities rather than background characteristics related to reputation. Furthermore, the lack of social roots could also be attributed to the increase in internationals on Dutch boards with 43% of directors being international in 2002 compared to 4% in 1987.
2.2.4 United Kingdom
Maclean, Harvey and Press (2006) also conducted extensive research on career paths of British top managers. Looking at personal characteristics, they found that British top 100 directors were slightly older in comparison to those in France, with an average age of 44 at recruitment. Similarly to France was the lack of female directors with 99% of the top 100 directors being male. Looking at social background, upper class backgrounds of British top managers were not as distinct as they were in France but still common (Hartmann, 1997).
obtained a doctorate. This particularly contrasts the typical educational profile of German CEOs (e.g. more than half of the DAX-30 CEOs in 2012 had a doctorate). Looking at subjects studied by the top 100 directors the results were similar to France, however, there seemed to be much more tolerance for academic backgrounds in arts, humanities and social sciences. Again, relatively few top directors were holding MBAs in 1998, but again most of them obtained their degrees before the expansion of MBAs in Europe.
Out of the top 100 British directors, 62% studied at an elite institution, which according to the authors goes against the general belief that British education is less elitist. 29.4% of higher education institutions most frequently attended by British top directors were Oxford and Cambridge, which confirmed the “continuing pre-eminence of [elitist institutions] while nevertheless underscoring the fact that this is less pronounced than previously” (Maclean, Harvey and Press, 2006, p.107). At the time the data was collected other “legitimate” education options (e.g. Manchester and St. Andrews) were already seen as a mark of distinction, however not enjoying the same level of reputation as Oxbridge. Norburn (1986) also tested the popular assumption that an “Oxbridge” undergraduate degree would differentiate the corporate elite, however he only found partial support for it. Norburn’s findings showed that Cambridge failed to differentiate between CEOs and their top management teams, but both Oxford and London are “skewed strongly towards the CEO” (1989, p.24).
2.3 Globalisation Effects
The effect of globalisation on career profiles of top managers and CEOs will be further elaborated and supported by literature in the following paragraph.
As a starting point, a study by Mayer and Whittington (1999) showed that the proceeding integration of Europe could have an effect on careers of the so-called European elite. Whilst their study found that in the late 1990s there were still distinct “Euro-elites” rather than one integrated European elite, they highlighted that the “signs of the future” may already be emerging, with more and more business leaders being transnational and having an international educational background. This means that according to their findings, nationally distinct CEO career profiles might be less visible now in comparison to research findings of studies based on data of the 1990s and early 2000s. Furthermore, there could be a group of international CEOs in Europe that follow their own typical career profile.
Other studies discussed the effects of international CEOs on their company and why an international CEO could be particularly positive for the firm. Heijltjes, Olie and Glunk pointed out that an international image can be a vital asset for a company to attract international investors, for example an Anglo-Saxon CEO “might considered to be an asset for European companies listed on the world’s most important stock exchanges: London and New York” (2003, p.93-94). However, their research that was based on data from 1999 showed that Swedish and Dutch companies still had a long way to go to become “stateless” (meaning that their top management teams become internationalised). At the same time they noted that there had been a “steady and substantial increase in the number of foreigners on the boards” (Heijltjes, Olie and Glunk, 2003, p.95).
According to these two studies, international CEOs are seen as very positive. However, the studies also highlight that international CEOs might be recruited intentionally for reasons of reputation. If the reason for their recruitment is purely the fact that they are international, it might be less important for those CEOs to actually match the career profiles of their national counterparts,
Another branch of studies looked at top management internationalisation in Europe and how rates of internationalisation might differ from country to another.
Looking at the antecedents of the internationalisation of boards, Oxelheim et al. (2013) found that there is a positive relationship between the internationalisation of a firm and the internationalisation of the corresponding board in Nordic countries. More specifically, firms with higher percentages of foreign sales, more foreign ownership and cross-listings on foreign exchanges were proven to have more international boards (including both home-country-based directors with international experience and foreign directors).
Research conducted by Van Veen and Elbertsen (2008) looked at the nationality diversity of corporate boards in Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. For the executive segment, which includes the CEO, they found that in Germany this segment was clearly more international than the supervisory segment. However, the opposite was the case for the United Kingdom. In the Netherlands there were only marginal differences but the overall greatest nationality diversity was found on Dutch boards. Whilst the authors clearly demonstrate the existence of internationals within European corporate boards they also highlighted that the pace at which nationality diversity increases differs per country and per board segment.
To summarise, these studies show that the number of international CEOs is likely to be even higher today, therefore also increasing the likelihood that a typical career profile of the international CEO in Europe has emerged over the past few years. Furthermore, they show that the likelihood of an international CEO probably depends on the country as well as firm size and type (e.g. multinational firm).
Finally, Tedlow, Purrington and Bettcher’s (2003, p.30) research led to the prediction that CEOs will be “chosen on the basis of their ability to increase shareholder wealth rather than on their nationality, religion, race, or gender”. Furthermore, due to globalisation one should expect to see “free trade” in CEOs. This would mean that national and international CEOs are purely chosen on their managerial skills rather than their background. Therefore, international CEOs would not have to match the profiles of their national counterparts.
2.4 Conclusion
The first section of this literature review gave an overview of what constitutes a CEO career profile and which aspects of it are particularly important for this research. It is clear that educational aspects, such as degree level and subject and type of institution studied at, need to be included. Furthermore, it will be interesting to also include MBAs as a separate distinctive type of degree. Additionally, the general career progression seems to be a vital part of the CEO career profile. This includes the number of appointments as indicator for mobility, appointment age and whether the CEO was recruited externally or internally.
Figure 1 – Main Findings of Literature Review
The findings of the last section are slightly contradicting. Whilst Mayer and Whittington (1999) predict the emergence of a so called “European elite” that will have its own typical career profile and will replace the separate national profiles, other studies highlight that potentially not just European businessmen will hold the top positions of European companies, but also other “foreigners” such as Americans. Therefore, career profiles of CEOs in Europe, particularly those of international CEOs, might vary greatly. Furthermore, the level of nationality diversity and hence also the number of international CEO, is likely to vary from one country to another. This could also have an influence on the extent to which international CEOs have to match the career profiles of their national counterparts. Those countries that are more open towards internationals and have higher levels of nationality diversity might also be more accepting to differing career profiles.
France
Personal characteristics: male, appointed with 40
Educational background: master's, engineering, science and business/management, no MBA,
degree obtained at elite institution Career progression: worked for 2 companies
before appointment, preference for internal recruitment
Germany
Personal characteristics: male, appointed with 52
Educational background: PhD, business/ management or engineering, no MBA, degree
not obtained at elite institution Career progression: preference for internal
recruitment
The Netherlands
NO TRADITIONAL DISTINCTIVE BACKGROUND
United Kingdom
Personal characteristics: male, appointed with 44
Educational background: bacherlor's, variety of subjects including social sciences/humanities/
arts, no MBA, degree obtained at elite institution
3. Research Questions
3.1 Main Research Question
Based on the findings from the literature review that proved the existence of nationally distinct CEO career profiles in Europe and the fact that nationality diversity amongst European CEOs is increasing, the following main research question was developed:
“To what extent do international CEOs in Europe need to match the career profiles of their national counterparts?“
To answer this question, the career profiles, including educational profile, personal characteristics and career progression profiles, of national and international CEOs in France, Germany, The Netherlands and United Kingdom will be thoroughly compared and contrasted.
3.2 Sub-questions
1) Is there still a typical career profile of a French/German/Dutch/British national CEO?
This question aims at comparing the findings of previous studies on traditional career profiles with present-day career profiles to see whether there have been significant changes in recent years.
2) Is there a typical career profile of an international CEO in France/Germany/The Netherlands/United Kingdom?
This question will compare the career profiles of international CEOs working within the four chosen European countries to see whether French/German/Dutch/British international CEOs have similar country-specific career profiles.
This question will compare and contrast the career profiles of national and international CEOs within each of the four European countries and therefore ultimately help to determine an answer for the main research question.
The following sub-questions will shed more light on specific aspects of the career profiles that might be more similar or different between national and international CEOs:
- To what extent are the educational profiles (degree level, degree subject,
characteristics of educational institutions and international experience) of national and international CEOs in France/Germany/The Netherlands/United Kingdom similar or different?
- To what extent are personal characteristics (age and gender) of national and
international CEOs in France/Germany/The Netherlands/United Kingdom similar or different?
- To what extent are the career progression profiles (number of companies
4. Hypotheses Development
4.1 Conceptual Model
Figure 2 – Conceptual Model
4.2 Statement of Hypotheses
Resulting from a thorough literature review and the conceptual model, the following set of hypotheses was developed.
For three of the four European countries, namely France, Germany and the United Kingdom, the literature review revealed that there are certain career characteristics of the business elite that are specific to the country. Even though most of the data these conclusions were based upon was from the late 1990s (e.g. Maclean, Harvey and Press, 2006), it is highly likely that there have not been major changes and that the majority of national CEOs still follows these typical career patterns. This leads to the first hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1: The average national CEO in Europe still follows a nationally distinct career pattern.
Following Mayer and Whittington’s (1999) predictions about a “European Elite” rather than separate distinct national profiles of business elites in Europe, it is assumed that CEOs that move within Europe have different heterogeneous career backgrounds that do not result in one typical profile. Furthermore, international CEOs in Europe are not necessarily European and therefore might have even more diverse career profiles. Amongst others, Oxelheim and Randøy (2003) already stated the positive effects of Anglo-American board members on firm performance in European companies. Therefore, Anglo-American candidates might be particularly popular when it comes to CEO recruitment. This leads to the following assumptions:
Hypothesis 2: There is no typical career profile of an international CEO in Europe.
Hypothesis 2a: There is no typical career profile of an international CEO within a specific country.
amongst CEOs worldwide and hence are assumed to be more similar. Educational backgrounds and typical career progression, however, might differ to a great extent depending on the nationality of the CEO.
Hypothesis 3: Career profiles of national and international CEOs in general show more differences than similarities.
Hypothesis 3a: Personal characteristics of national and international CEOs in Europe are more similar than different.
Hypothesis 3b: Educational backgrounds of national and international CEOs in Europe are more different than similar.
Hypothesis 3c: Career progression of national and international CEOs in Europe is more different than similar.
As the literature review reveals, career patterns of the business elite in France and Germany seem to be more distinct than in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Particularly educational backgrounds seem to be very important in France and Germany.
Whittington and Mayer (2000) pointed out that France and Germany were similar in their managerial skill systems (backgrounds in engineering and science, high degree levels) whilst the overall educational level of CEOs in the United Kingdom was lower. Moreover, they argued that in comparison to France and Germany, the United Kingdom was an “outlier” due to overwhelmingly professional backgrounds as well as the importance of general management and financial backgrounds of top managers. In this sense career profiles of British top managers were more similar to those in the United States (Whittington and Mayer, 2000).
Furthermore, Hartmann (2000) highlighted how CEOs in both France and Germany were commonly recruited from the social elite (80%, based on data from 1995) and that education played a very significant role in both cultures. Whilst in France elite schools were very important, in Germany the focus lay on high levels of education.
nationally distinct patterns of top managers in Europe, the comparison of those three countries showed quite a lot of similarities particularly in terms of gender and educational profiles. This again suggests that the United Kingdom and the Netherlands are potentially more similar whilst they differ in comparison to France and Germany. This leads to the following last hypothesis concerning the matching of career profiles between national and international CEOs:
5. Methodology
Due to the descriptive nature of the main research question and sub-questions, a quantitative approach was chosen for this research. This was grounded on Lawrence et al. (2013) who point out that descriptive research provides a test of hypotheses and aims to quantify.
The first part of this methodology section explains the variables; followed by the characteristics of the sample and the data collection method. The last part will focus on the strategy for the statistical analysis.
5.1 Variables
The following set of variables was defined for this research. Together they added up to a detailed career profile for each of the individual CEOs.
5.1.1 Personal Characteristics
The first set of variables aimed at providing general information about the CEO and his personal characteristics. The first variable was the name of the CEO (NAME), including first name and surname, also mentioning middle names if they were frequently included in publications.
The following three variables concerned with basic CEO characteristics were gender (GEN), Nationality (NAT) in terms of the passport(s) held by the CEO as well as the year of birth of the CEO (YOB) as age can be seen as proxy for experience. A CEO was defined as “national” if he was holding a passport of the country in which the company he is CEO of has its headquarters. An “international” CEO on the other hand works in a country for which he does not hold a passport. Following the methodology of Van Veen and Elbertsen (2008) the foreign nationality was chosenfor CEOs with more than one nationality.
5.1.2 Educational Background
The next set of variables aimed at providing a detailed educational profile for each CEO. The first variable indicated the highest degree level the CEO has completed (DLEVEL), starting with no university degree (e.g. if the CEO has only had vocational training), a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree and finishing with the highest level, a PhD. For countries that were not following the bachelor/master system at the time the CEO completed his higher education, the degree level was translated into the bachelor/master equivalent. For example before the implementation of the Bologna declaration, the academic degree in Germany was called Diplom and usually took students 4-6 years to complete (Kultusministerkonferenz, 2010). This equates the present-day master’s degree level.
The second educational variable was the main degree subject area in which the CEO had completed his education (DSUBJ). Since several CEOs were holding more than one degree in different subject areas a second degree subject variable (DSUBJ_2) was added. The specific degrees studied were assigned to one of the following degree categories: Economics and Business, Law, Behavioural and Social Sciences (e.g. Psychology), Mathematics/Natural Sciences (e.g. Physics, Chemistry), Arts, Engineering and in case a subject did not fit into any category it was assigned to “Other”.
An individual variable was chosen to indicate whether or not the CEO holds an MBA. An MBA (Master of Business Administration) is “a graduate degree achieved at a university or college that provides theoretical and practical training to help graduates gain a better understanding of general business management functions” (Investopedia, 2013). According to Mintzberg, the MBA can be seen as a method of screening, a “convenient credential to justify hiring choices” (2004, p.83). This means that a recruiter might be more favourable towards a candidate holding an MBA because he knows that the candidate has a solid knowledge of business and management, at least in theory. Due to different rates of introduction of MBA programmes in Europe it will be interesting to see if the MBA is an established part of a typical CEO career in some countries more than in others.
for a full list). For Germany, an institution was assigned the elite status if it was one of the 11 institutions that were awarded for their Zukunftskonzept by the 3rd round of the
Exzellensinitiative (Wissenschaftsrat, 2012, see Appendix IB for full list). Being
awarded for Zukunftskonzept means that the university has a long-term development strategy for research as well as a specific focus on certain subject areas. For the United Kingdom, an institution was counted as elite if it was one of the 24 Russell Group institutions (see Appendix IC for full list). The Russell Group universities are “committed to maintaining the very best research, an outstanding teaching and learning experience and unrivalled links with business and the public sector” (Russell Group Website, 2013) and hence can be seen as the best places for higher education in the United Kingdom. Since there is no comparable concept of an elite institution in the Netherlands it was decided to leave out this variable if the CEO obtained his degree in the Netherlands. A 2011 study showed that Dutch universities in comparison to U.S. institutions are far less hierarchical and there is no sense of an elite group (Guttenplan, 2011). For many degree courses students are automatically admitted if they have completed high school and for more popular subjects such as medicine where places are limited there are lotteries. The lack of elite institutions in the Netherlands is also supported by literature. Heemskerk and Fennema (2009, p.813) for example pointed out that “contrary to many of its neighbouring countries, the Netherlands does not have a well-defined elite educational trajectory” and “Dutch universities have always been on equal parts in terms of academic quality”. This means that the concept of certain institutions having the reputation of better quality teaching, facilities etc. does not seem to exist for the Netherlands. The elite institution variable was also left out in cases where the CEO had completed all his higher education in a country other than France, Germany and the United Kingdom.
The final educational variable was the international aspect of the degree (INTDEG). This variable was positive when the CEO had studied abroad during his higher education. However, this only included full degrees rather than semesters/years abroad as part of a degree because information on this is unlikely to be published.
5.1.3 Career Progression
indicate that the CEO has been pursuing an “external labour market strategy” based on the idea that “in order to advance in one’s career, it is necessary to have a balanced mix of career moves inside and across employers instead of ascending a single corporate ladder” (Hamori and Kakarika, 2009, p.356).
A second variable indicated the age at which the CEO started at the company he is now CEO of (AGECOMP). This was followed by a variable stating the age of CEO appointment (AGEAPP). If the starting age and CEO appointment age are the same (difference between the number will be zero) this indicates that the CEO has been recruited externally whilst a wide gap between these two variables would indicate that the CEO has worked his way up to the top within the company.
The final career characteristic variable chosen was international aspect of job (INTJOB), indicating whether the CEO has worked abroad at any point of his career. This also includes his current appointment, so for international CEOs this variable was always positive.
5.1.4 Control Variables
It was decided to control for several factors that could potentially influence the likelihood of a CEO being national or international. Whilst knowing what factors affect levels of nationality diversity does not directly help to answer the research question, it might give some explanation for the results of the statistical analysis. If the level of CEO nationality diversity is likely to be significantly smaller in one country for example, this could explain why international CEOs have to match the career profiles of their national counterparts. Companies might be resistant to recruit internationals already, but even more resistant to recruit internationals with different backgrounds. Furthermore, findings could provide ideas for future research. If results for any of the control variables are significant, e.g. if the level of nationality diversity increases with firm size, it would be interesting to do a follow-up research looking for differences and similarities of national and international CEO career profiles between large and small/medium-sized firms.
2011 in U.S. Dollars (TOTSALES). A second measure of company size used was size by total number of employees in 2011 (EMPL).
Additionally, a control variable was included for the type of industry (IND) in order to see the influence of industry effects. The type of industry the company operates in was indicated by the primary US SIC code, which could be found within the ORBIS database. In cases where companies had two primary SIC codes the second one was also added to the dataset (IND_2). Later on these industry codes were re-coded according to 10 main industry groups (see Appendix IV, codebook).
Finally, it was also controlled for the country of origin of the company (COO_COMP; see 5.1.1 for explanation of this variable). Country of origin was chosen as a control variable because the level of nationality is highly likely to vary across countries (c.f. findings of Van Veen and Elbertsen, 2008).
5.2 Sample
The unit of analysis were CEOs (individuals) of major corporations in terms of market value in France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom in 2011. Only the largest corporations were included because the relevant data for their CEOs is widely available.
The complete sampling frame from which the actual sample was drawn was 3050 corporations and their respective CEOs. This number was derived from lists indicating the largest companies of each of the four countries. No ranking included sufficient amounts of companies from all four countries, for example the Forbes Global 2000 ranking included less than 50 German and Dutch companies. Therefore separate rankings had to be used.
For France, the sample was taken from Forbes Global 2000 “World’s Biggest Public Companies 2011” by extracting only the French companies. For Germany the sample was taken from the “Top 500 ranking of Germany's largest corporations 2011” by DIE
WELT. As there was no ranking available for the Netherlands the sample was composed
Amsterdam Midkap Index 2011 (AMX index), which is made up of “shares issued by the 25 most traded companies listed on Euronext Amsterdam following the companies included in the AEX-index” (NYSE Euronext, 2013), were included. Finally, the sample for the UK was taken from the Financial Times 500 UK companies 2011 ranking.
In order to have equal sample sizes for each country, only the 50 largest companies of each country and their CEOs were taken into account. A full list of these companies can be found in Appendix II. Within this final sample of 200 companies there were three dual-listed companies that ended up appearing twice in the list of CEOs. For Royal Dutch Shell (Netherlands and United Kingdom) it was decided to include it in the Dutch sample as the headquarters of the company are in The Hague, Netherlands. To keep sample sizes relatively equal, Unilever, which consists of Unilever PLC based in London and Unilever N.V. based in Rotterdam, was included in the Dutch sample, whilst Reed Elsevier, which consists of Reed Elsevier PLC headquartered in London and Reed Elsevier N.V. based in Amsterdam, was included in the sample for the United Kingdom. Additionally, it has to be mentioned that SAP AG has two CEOs, namely Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe, increasing the German sample to 51 CEOs. From this sample of 198 CEOs several CEOs were excluded from the final sample because even though their company was listed within one of the four countries, the headquarters were located in a different country. For example Air France-KLM is listed in the Netherlands, but the official headquarters are in Paris, France.
Overall, this resulted in a final sample of 50 CEOs for France, 50 CEOs for Germany, 44 CEOs for the Netherlands and 48 CEOs for the United Kingdom, leading to a total sample size of 192 CEOs. A full list of these CEOs and their respective companies can be found in Appendix III. This sample size was adequate for the type of statistical analysis (cluster analysis and logistic regression) used in this research, for example Roscoe (1975) argues that a sample size larger than 30 is sufficient.
5.3 Data Collection
(2005) and their classification of research design according to the method of data collection, a methodology based on archival resources, more specifically online databases and other online resources that are publicly available, was chosen. This methodology was also chosen based on the methodology of Hamori and Kakarika (2009) who analysed CEO related data in Europe and the U.S..
After the final sample of companies was determined, the next step was to identify the CEOs of the respective companies and find the data for each of the variables explained in section 5.1. The procedure for completing the dataset was the following:
1) ORBIS Database 2) Company website
3) Annual reports of companies (available via the company website) 4) Lexis Nexis Academic for company info
5) Investing.businesweek.com and people.forbes.com; 2 websites that provide very detailed biographical information on CEOs
6) General Google search: “CEO of [name of company]” if CEO is unknown; google “[name of CEO]“ and “[name of CEO] + biography”
7) Search for newspaper articles: Financial Times and LexisNexis Newsportal
If not all the relevant information was found on ORBIS the next step was to look through the company website, then the annual report and the other consecutive sources listed until all the data was complete. The only exception to this procedure was the Dutch dataset. Most of the relevant information for Dutch CEOs could be found on Management Scope (available at http://managementscope.nl). Going through the procedure mentioned above any missing data was completed.
5.4 Statistical Analyses
5.4.1 Descriptive Analysis
The first part of the analysis was purely descriptive and the main aim was to establish whether CEOs in Europe still have country-specific career profiles. A second part of the descriptive analysis looked at the international CEOs within each of the four European countries. The results of the descriptive analysis already gave an indication about similarities and differences between national and international CEOs in Europe. The tools for the descriptive analysis were frequencies and means depending on the type of data (nominal or scale).
5.4.2 Cluster Analysis
The second part of the statistical analysis went beyond just summarising the data and made use of cluster analysis. This type of analysis was chosen because the aim of this study is to group objects (in this case individuals, CEOs) based on the characteristics they possess and assign them to clusters (Hair et al., 2010). So if French national CEOs for example all follow a similar career pattern they should be identified as one homogeneous cluster.
single cluster” (Norusis, 2011, p.396). According to IBM (2011) the distance between cluster i and j is defined as:
The output of the two-step cluster analysis then indicates the quality of the clusters on a scale from poor to good. Additionally, it provides the silhouette coefficient, which is a measure of cohesion and separation. For each object in the cluster the average distance to the other objects in the cluster as well as the average distance to all objects is calculated and the silhouette measure is the difference between the smallest average between cluster distance and the averages of within-cluster distance (Norusis, 2011). A good solution would have a small within-cluster distance and a large between-cluster distance. The maximum value of the silhouette measure is 1, which would indicate a good solution; a negative value for silhouette measure (close to -1) would indicate a larger within-cluster variation than average distance to objects of other clusters and therefore a poor solution (Norusis, 2011).
5.4.3 Regression Analysis
In order to test for the effect of the control variables, namely firm size in terms of total annual sales in USD in 2011, firm size in terms of total number of employees in 2011, industry the company operates in and country of origin of the company, a logistic regression analysis was carried out.
The first step was to transform the firm size data by taking the logarithm. The reason for this transformation was to allow for better measure of relationships (Hair et al., 2010).
Binary logistic regression was chosen as a suitable method as it allows for the dependent variable to be categorical. In this case the dependent variable was national versus international CEO, hence two classifications. The variate of a logistic regression represents a single multivariate relationship with coefficients that indicate the relative impact of predictor/independent variables (Hair et al., 2010). The aim of a logistic regression is to predict the odds of an event to happen, so for example the odds of a CEO of a manufacturing company being international. The following model shows the foundation of a logistic regression (based on Tranmer and Elliot, 2008): Let
where Pi is the probability of the CEO being international and xi is for example the type of industry the firm operates in. In the case of industry ß0 would give the log of odds of a CEO from the mining industry being international, ß1 for a CEO from the manufacturing industry and so on (further industries would be added to the model).
6. Empirical Results
6.1 Descriptive Analysis
6.1.1 Total Sample
Looking at the characteristics of European CEOs overall, it becomes clear that the typical European CEO was male (97.9 % of the sample, see Appendix VA), on average born in the late 1950s and has been appointed as CEO at the age of 50 (see Table 2).
Table 2 - Personal Characteristics of European CEOs
6.1.1.1 Nationality Diversity
When testing for nationality diversity of CEOs within the four countries (see Figure 3-6 for details), it can be seen that diversity was highest in the United Kingdom with 43.8% of CEOs being internationals, coming from 15 different countries. This was followed by Germany with 22% of CEOs being internationals (5 different countries) and the Netherlands with 20.5% internationals (7 different countries). Least diverse was France with only 6% of CEOs in the sample having a nationality other than French; the only two places these CEOs came from were the neighbouring countries of Belgium and Germany.
Looking at levels of internationality in general, the sample included a total of 148 (77.1%) national CEOs and 44 (22.9%) international CEOs.
Figure 3 - Nationality Diversity of CEOs in France
Figure 4 - Nationality Diversity of CEOs in Germany
94 4 2
Nationality Diversity of CEOs in France
France Belgium Germany 78 10 4 4 2 2
Figure 5 - Nationality Diversity of CEOs in the Netherlands
Figure 6 - Nationality Diversity of CEOs in the United Kingdom
79,55 4,545
4,545 2,273
2,273 2,273 2,273 2,273
Nationality Diversity of CEOs in the
Netherlands
Netherlands France United Kingdom Belgium Germany Norway Switzerland United States 56,25 8,333 4,167 4,167 4,167 2,083 2,083 2,083 2,083 2,083 2,083 2,083 2,083 2,083 2,083 2,0836.1.1.2 Career Mobility
Based on the vast literature on career mobility (cf. Hamori and Kakarika, 2009; Hamori, 2010 and Murphy and Zábojník, 2007) it was decided to also include a descriptive analysis looking at external and internal CEO recruitment.
A total of 23.4% of the sample CEOs were recruited externally. Looking at the different countries, there was no country that showed a significantly higher or lower number of externally recruited CEOs (see Table 3). Furthermore, with 11 out of 33 CEOs with an MBA (33.3%) having been recruited externally, compared to 28 out of 132 CEOs without an MBA (21.2%) (see Table 4), an MBA does not seem to greatly increase the chances of being recruited externally. Finally, there was no significant difference between national and international CEOs with 21.8% of national and 28.6% of international CEOs being recruited externally (see Appendix VA). However, a slightly higher percentage of international CEOs were recruited externally.
Table 3 – External Recruitment based on Country
6.1.2 National CEOs
This section will look at descriptive results (frequencies and means) for the national CEOs of the individual countries and therefore give indications about average national career profiles. For the complete set of descriptive tables see Appendix VB.
6.1.2.1 France
On average born in the mid-1950s, the French national CEO has worked for around 3 companies including his current one. He started at his current company at a mean age of 40 and was appointed as CEO at a mean age of 53. Furthermore, he has also worked abroad for some time of his career (70.2% of the sample).
In terms of educational background, French CEOs in the sample had usually completed higher education (91.5% of the sample), most of them at the bachelor’s (38.3%) or master’s (48.9%) level. Most common degree subject areas were economics and business as well as engineering, each accounting for 34%. With only 4.3% of French CEOs in the sample holding an MBA this type of degree does not seem to be part of the typical French CEO career profile. Confirming the findings of previous studies that highlight the importance of elite institutions in France it is not surprising that 72.3% of French CEOs have completed at least part of their higher education at one of the identified French top schools. Finally, it was found that most CEOs have completed their full education in France, with only 8.5% having studied abroad.
6.1.2.2 Germany
Born in the late 1950s (1958 on average) the German national CEO is slightly younger than the average French CEO. He has worked for 2.97 companies and started at his current company when he was approximately 41 years old. With a mean appointment age of 50 the appointment age on average seems relatively young, particularly in comparison to national CEOs in the United Kingdom. Typically, the German CEO has worked abroad for part of his career (64.1%).
