Dynamic changes in corporate financialization during CEO tenure.

• Corporate financialization weakens in the early stages of a CEO's tenure. • CEOs tend to increase corporate financialization in the later stages of their tenure. • In normal departures, CEOs increase financialization in the later stages of their tenure, while in abnormal departures, financialization remains unchanged. • CEOs of non-state-owned enterprises, older CEOs, and CEOs with lower shareholding ratio increase corporate financialization more in their late tenure. We examine the relationship between CEO tenure and corporate financialization using data of non-financial listed companies in Chinese A-share market from 2010 to 2021. We find that corporate financialization is weakened in the early stage of CEO tenure and strengthened in the late stage. Depending on the predictability of CEO's departure time, we classify departures as normal and abnormal. Only under normal departures do CEOs increase corporate financialization in their late tenure. We also find that CEOs of non-state-owned enterprises, older CEOs, and CEOs with lower shareholding ratio increase corporate financialization more in their late tenure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]