The Impact of Operational Diversification and Investment Opportunities on the Relationship between Cost of Capital and CEO Change

The opportunistic approach of managers leads to decisions on personal interests and the imposition of costs on the part of shareholders through increased agency costs. This paper, aims to examine the interaction between cost of capital and manager change based on operational diversification and investment opportunities.

To empirically examine this effect, data on companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange for the period of 2009 to 2018 were collected and a hybrid data regression model was used to test the research hypotheses.

The results of the research show that cost of capital (expected returns) and investment opportunities have a significant effect on management turnover. On the other hand, we do not find evidence on the impact of under-investment and operational diversification on the possibility of CEO change. Furthermore, the interactive effect of investment opportunities and cost of capital on management turnover is also confirmed. Finally, our results Indicate that the change of CEO is a function of the interactive effect of operational diversification and cost of capital.

Managerial opportunism and inefficiency of investment increase the cost of corporate capital because the manager's inappropriate decision leads to an increase in the risk of wrong choices for investors. Changing the managerial decision approach leads to the transmission of information to shareholders in order to maintain or change management.