Firm performance: The role of CEOs' emotional and cognitive characteristics

The paper examines the relationships between CEOs’ personal traits, emotions, attitudes and tolerance of ambiguity; and subsequently, the influence of CEOs’ ambiguity tolerance in firms' performance. Design/methodology/approach – Survey data were collected from 256 ICT firms established in Greece. Their CEOs completed questionnaires examining TOA, personal traits, emotions and attitudes in the workplace. Principal components analysis and ordinary least-squares regressions were used to explore the hypotheses of the paper. Findings – Three factors characterize CEOs' emotions, namely pleasure, dominance and arousal; two factors their involvement, namely importance and interest; and, respectively, one their emotional intelligence namely, empathy/handling relationships. Further, locus of control; importance; arousal; empathy/handling relationships and interest affect decisively CEOs' tolerance of ambiguity, which in turn, seems to influence positively firms' performance. Research limitations/implications – Further research is required in Greek ICT industry regarding the influence of CEOs' emotional and cognitive attributes in organizations' financial performance. Likewise, this research should be expanded to other industries. Originality/value – The originality of this study lies in the finding that emotional and cognitive characteristics affect CEOs' TOA, which, in turn, influences significantly firms' performance. Another significant contributing factor is that the study is carried out in Greece, where few studies have been conducted in this area