The Narcissist’s Guide to Corporate Political Activity

Scholars have called for further research into the antecedents of CPA, particularly those related to CEO characteristics. In this article, we consider one CEO characteristic that has seen increasing attention in the management sciences but has yet to be applied to CPA research: CEO narcissism. We argue that while CEO narcissism might not be related to CPA in general, it will be related to a specific kind of CPA, namely CPA aimed at more ideologically extreme politicians. Using two different estimators to address endogeneity bias inherent to much CPA research, we found partial support for our hypothesis regarding CPA in general and strong support for our prediction that narcissistic CEOs will be related to ideologically extreme CPA. In this way, we add nuance to the debate over why firms engage in CPA.