Play It Again, Sam? Performance Persistence of Leaders Across Firms and Fields

Abstract

Research on the labor market for leaders often assumes that performance is portable—that if individuals succeed in one setting, they are likely to succeed in another. This belief underpins firms’ preference for serial CEOs and sports clubs’ reliance on experienced head coaches. Yet empirical evidence for such persistence remains limited. In this paper, we examine the extent to which leadership performance persists across organizations and across domains by studying serial CEOs in the United States and Finland alongside professional football coaches. Our analyses show that while prior success plays an important role in leader selection, the persistence of performance across organizational contexts is modest. Furthermore, the strength of persistence does not increase substantially when subsequent roles share similar demands with earlier ones. These findings suggest that leader performance is less a generalizable trait and more contingent on situational fit.

Speaker Biography

Markus A. Fitza is an associate professor at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management. He conducts research in the areas of strategy, corporate governance and entrepreneurship. In his works he explored a variety of contexts, such as venture capital investments, IPO underpricing, upper echelons and corporate boards; recently he also published in the intersection of Biology and Entrepreneurship. Markus is a Member of the Editorial Board of the Strategic Management Journal and his work has appeared in leading journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, the Strategic Management Journal and the Journal of International Business Studies as well as in media outlets such as the Financial Times, USA Today, the Guardian and the Independent. Markus holds a Ph.D. in Strategy and Entrepreneurship from the University of Colorado at Boulder, an MBA from the University of Oxford and a Master in Molecular Biology from the University of Texas at Austin. In addition to his academic career, he worked in various start-ups and as a board member.