The Impact of CEO Narcissism on Corporate Tax Sheltering: An Empirical Study

Abstract

Corporate tax sheltering is a legal action that may be taken by companies to achieve a better financial position. Chief executive officer (CEO) plays a unique role in determining the Company’s tax strategies. Meanwhile, CEO personal traits can affect the company strategy and outcomes. Many of CEO personality traits that affecting firm outcomes have been examined in the literature. Particularly, narcissism is considered as a major CEO trait, which is associated with overconfidence, and willingness to take risks. This research focuses on narcissism trait which is seen as one of the most complex and highly researched personality traits in prior studies. Moreover, this study focuses on examining the relationship between CEO narcissism and corporate tax sheltering which is considered as an aggressive form of corporate tax avoidance and has become a general feature of today´s business landscape (Lanis & Richardson, 2011). This study is based on a sample comprises 48 non–financial firms summing up 267 firm-year observations for the period from 2014 to 2019. An Ordinary Least Squared (OLS) regression and Feasible Generalized Least Square (FGLS) regression are conducted to examine the hypothesis. Contrary to expectations, the results show insignificant negative relationship between CEO narcissism and corporate tax sheltering which means that no significant relationship is found between CEO narcissism and corporate tax sheltering.