CEO Background Features and Zero-Leverage Strategy Selection from the Perspective of Management Defense

Purpose/Significance From the perspective of management entrenchment, there is little research in the existing literature whether the CEO characteristics of government-owned and non-government-owned listed companies have certain differences in the choice of zero-leverage strategies. Design/Methodology This paper uses the 2008～2018 A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen as the research sample, and studies the relationship between corporate governance, CEO background characteristics and the company's zero leverage strategy from the perspective of management defense. Findings/Conclusions Research shows that the background characteristics of the CEO will significantly affect the company's choice of zero leverage strategy: the older the CEO, the lower the education level, the longer the tenure, and the higher the degree of management defense, the greater the likelihood that the company will adopt a zero leverage strategy. The degree of equity concentration weakens the relevance of the CEO's background characteristics to the company's zero-leverage strategy to a certain extent, and increases the difficulty of implementing management defense. After further distinguishing the nature of property rights, it is found that the background characteristics of CEOs of state-owned enterprises have no significant effect on the zero-leverage strategy, and the effects of CEO background characteristics of non-state-owned enterprises on the zero-leverage strategy and the adjustment of equity concentration are more significant.