EVALUATION OF DIFFERENCES IN PERFORMANCE BETWEEN SHAREHOLDER-CEO-LED AND PROFESSIONAL-CEO-LED LARGE COMPANIES IN LITHUANIA

Abstract

There is an ongoing debate on what exactly are the differences between founder/shareholder-CEOs and profes-sional-CEOs, and how those differences impact the performance of companies both from a managerial and financial stand-point. Though this issue attracted a lot of attention from scholars during the last 30 years, and the consensus has formethat there are indeed differences in motivational factors, managerial capabilities as well as risk-taking decisions betweefounder/shareholder-CEOs and professional-CEOs, the research on how this impacts firm performance provides inconsist-ent results. This paper aims to add to existing research in the field by evaluating whether there are significant differences irevenue growth rates and profitability between founder/shareholder-CEO-led and professional-CEO-led companies. Baseon the revenue and profit data for the 5-year period of 2016 to 2020 of a sample of 205 of the largest companies in Lithu-ania, no significant differences in performance were identified. In this sense, this study confirms the generalization that thinfluence of a CEO diminishes as ventures grow and mature.