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Abstract
Purpose – We aim to verify if and how top management’s acquired academic characteristics help firms withstand crises by examining the effect of CEOs’ and board members’ education and scholar expertise on financial resilience through innovation. Theoretical framework – We draw upon upper echelons, agency and information asymmetry theories. Design/methodology/approach – We collect data for the Brazilian stock market during the COVID-19 pandemic to allow observation in times of crisis. Using a unique dataset of academic curricula, we estimate OLS and Cox regressions to reach our goal and examine the stability and flexibility of firms during the pandemic. We perform robustness checks through quantile regression to provide more evidence for our findings. Findings – We find that top managements’ acquired academic characteristics have an impact on financial resilience. This relationship is sometimes moderated by innovation. Overall, innovation and top managements’ acquired academic characteristics seem advantageous during a crisis with their interaction boosting these relationships. Research Practical & Social implications – This study provides evidence of the importance of top management to yet another organizational outcome, i.e. resilience. Our contributions are both theoretical and empirical as we advance in the discussions about financial resilience, corporate governance and innovation while we deliver insights to practitioners and policymakers. Originality/value – We are the first to uncover some of the determinants of financial resilience in Brazil whose stock market tends to be more sensitive to shocks than that of more developed countries. Our study provides guidance to both investors and managers.