Do overconfident CEOs stay out of trouble? Evidence from employee litigations

Abstract

The authors study the relationship between CEO overconfidence and litigation risk by examining employee-level lawsuit data. The purpose of this paper is to better understand the executive characteristics that potentially affect the likelihood of employee litigations. The paper makes three main contributions. First, it provides the first large-sample evidence on CEO overconfidence and labor relations. The authors employ data on firm-level labor litigation that contains both the case reason and case outcome. Second, this paper adds to the growing literature of CEO overconfidence and governance practices in the workplace. Finally, the study highlights the importance of employee treatment and explores the impact of labor lawsuits on firm value.