This dissertation explores the determinants of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) perquisites, i.e., nonmonetary compensation offered to particular employees and not essential to the accomplishment of a CEO’s duties. While the current CEO perquisite literature has focused on understanding the economic determinants of CEO perquisites, I study the social-psychological determinants of perquisites. Specifically, I propose that organizational status is positively associated with CEO perquisites. The status literature suggests that high-status organizations derive benefits from status and status signals, while agency theory proposes that perquisites are a way for CEOs to extract private rents. Therefore, I posit that for high-status organizations, the benefits derived from certain CEO perquisites may negate the costs associated with those perquisites. I examine a specific CEO perquisite: the mandatory use of corporate aircraft for personal travel. Prior research and the popular press suggest that this perquisite is often seen not only as a status signal but also as an agency cost. Accordingly, I hypothesize that higher status organizations and organizations with higher status directors are more likely than lower status organizations or organizations with lower status directors to mandate their CEOs to use corporate aircraft for personal travel. I also propose that the effect is stronger for low- or high-status organizations than for middle-status organizations. In addition, I hypothesize five contingencies moderating the above relationships. I examine hypothesized relationships using a sample of S&P 500 organizations, and I find support for many of my hypotheses. This dissertation contributes to both status and executive compensation literature.

Managers’ control over the timing and content of information disclosure represents a significant strategic tool which they can use at their discretion. However, extant theoretical perspectives offer incongruent arguments and incompatible predictions about when and why managers would release inside information about their firms. More specifically, agency theory and theories within competitive dynamics provide competing hypotheses about when and why managers would disclose inside information about their firms. In this study, I highlight how voluntary disclosure theory may help to coalesce these two theoretical perspectives. Voluntary disclosure theory predicts that managers will release inside information when managers perceive that the benefits outweigh the costs of doing so. Accordingly, I posit that competitive dynamics introduce the costs associated with disclosing information (i.e., proprietary costs) and that agency theory highlights the benefits associated with disclosing information. Examining the context of seasoned equity offerings (SEOs), I identify three ways managers can use information in SEO prospectuses. I hypothesize that competitive intensity increases proprietary costs that will reduce disclosure of inside information but will increase discussing the organization positively. I then hypothesize that capital market participants (e.g., security analysts and investors) may prefer managers to provide more, clearer, and positive information about the SEO and their firms. I find support for many of my hypotheses.

Agglomeration research has investigated a key research question, i.e., why do firms in a specific industry co-locate geographically? In the agglomeration literature, it has been assumed that each firm has one business establishment in a cluster such that firms always co-locate with competitors. However, it is often observed that firms operate several business establishments in a cluster, so they co-locate not only with competitors (i.e., inter-firm agglomeration) but also with their own business establishments (i.e., intra-firm agglomeration). While inter-firm agglomeration is a counterpart to the traditional concept of agglomeration, intra-firm agglomeration is a new concept in agglomeration research. The separation between intra-firm and inter-firm agglomeration raises two research questions – 1) how does intra-firm agglomeration differ from inter-firm agglomeration? and 2) do firms decide their locations for intra-firm vs. inter-firm agglomeration differently? These questions actually extend the key question in agglomeration research into a new setting in which firms have several business establishments in a cluster. I proposed that firms can extract more benefits but neutralize more threats from agglomeration through intra-firm agglomeration than through inter-firm agglomeration. I further developed research hypotheses to test this argument in a research context in which multi-unit firms decide their new establishments’ distances to competitors and their other establishments at the same time. The hypotheses received empirical support in an empirical setting in which 10 large multi-unit hotel firms established new hotels in 20 U.S. cities, and several supplementary analyses show that these results are robust.