This paper examines the influence of CEO reputation on corporate proxy voting. Relying on prestigious business awards (through which the CEO is elevated to superstar status) as salient shocks to CEO reputation, we find that shareholders in aggregate, and mutual funds in particular, are more likely to vote with management (i.e., against shareholder proposals) when the CEO is a superstar. We use a battery of matching procedures to mitigate the concern that these results are driven by selection. We further show that shareholder proposals, especially contested ones and those with positive ISS recommendations, are significantly more likely to fail when the CEO is a superstar. Our results suggest that investors are sensitive to the external appraisal conveyed by the superstar status and prefer not to oppose management.

本文探讨了CEO声誉对公司代理投票的影响。依靠著名的商业奖项（通过该奖项，首席执行官被提升为超级明星地位）作为对首席执行官声誉的显着冲击，我们发现股东，特别是共同基金，更有可能投票支持管理层（即反对股东提案）当首席执行官是超级明星时。我们使用一系列匹配程序来减轻人们对这些结果是由选择驱动的担忧。我们进一步表明，当首席执行官是超级明星时，股东提案，尤其是有争议的提案和具有积极 ISS 建议的提案，失败的可能性要大得多。我们的研究结果表明，投资者对超级明星地位所传达的外部评价很敏感，并且不愿意反对管理层。