We examine the effect of the CEO’s network centrality on a firm’s future stock price crash risk with a longitudinal dataset of S&P 1500 companies from 1999 to 2019. We find that firms with more central CEOs are less likely to show bad news hoarding behavior, leading to lower future stock price crash risk. Our results hold even after controlling for other CEO characteristics and the social connectedness of directors and are also robust to alternate measures. We further find that firms with better-connected CEOs have lower likelihood of using accounting manipulations with aggressive accruals and real earnings management, preventing the accumulation of bad news. Overall, our results support the notion that more connected CEOs may provide a governance role via reducing the stockpiling of bad news and mitigation of stock price crash risk.

我们使用 1999 年至 2019 年标准普尔 1500 指数公司的纵向数据集检验了 CEO 的网络中心性对公司未来股价崩盘风险的影响。我们发现，拥有更多中央 CEO 的公司不太可能表现出坏消息囤积行为，导致降低未来股价崩盘风险。即使在控制了其他 CEO 特征和董事的社会联系之后，我们的结果仍然成立，并且对于替代措施也是稳健的。我们进一步发现，CEO 人脉更广的公司使用会计操纵手段进行积极的应计和实际盈余管理的可能性较低，从而防止坏消息的积累。总体而言，我们的结果支持这样一种观点，即更多关联的 CEO 可以通过减少坏消息的储存和减轻股价崩盘风险来提供治理角色。