Organizational Identification and Founder CEO succession: Evidence from IPO Firms.

Drawing from the CEO organizational identification literature, we theorize that founder CEO succession decisions will be dependent upon the strength of these CEOs' organizational identification with their firms. Our theoretical premise is that factors that decrease founder CEOs' organizational identification-being a serial entrepreneur and the number of cofounders-will positively affect their succession. Conversely, factors that increase founder CEOs' organizational identification-time as a private firm and core founder status-will negatively affect their succession. We find strong support for our arguments in the context of IPO firms during the 2000-2013 period. Our findings enable us to illustrate that founder CEOs' succession decisions may be better understood by considering their psychological traits rather than focusing only on their performance and control power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]