Title:
DOES CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER CHARACTERISTICS IMPACT ON FIRMS CAPITAL STRUCTURE? A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW

Authors:
L.G.R.V. De Silva, Y.K. Weerakoon Banda, Sri Lanka

Abstract:

This study systematically analyzes the existing literature of impact made by CEO characteristics on capital structure and thereby identifying existing gap in the literature to provide a basic conclusion. A systematic literature review methodology is used to review 8 articles selected from reputed referred journals for the period of 25 years from 1995-2020 to provide an overview of previous studies. This comprehensive literature review reveals different researchers across various geographies have proved CEO characteristics as an unobservable component impact on the firm capital structure. All existing literature is only based on examining the empirical relationship and none of the prior studies have adopted survey, qualitative and triangulation methods with lack of systematic theory development, which opens new spheres for future research. Further in the recent past there is an increase of research interest in this topic, but it is observed that most of the regions and countries are still not examined which provides scope for cross country studies. This study is a theoretical review in nature therefore, it does not provide any empirical results for conclusion where only a summary of the results of various researchers has been synthesized. This is the first literature review study done under this topic which will be useful to researchers and academics to understand the impact of CEO characteristics on capital structure in a theoretical perspective and to conduct future research in highlighted new avenues.