The Curse of Extremes: Generalist Career Experience and CEO Initial Compensation

Studies argue that generalist CEOs are more valued by the market for executive labor and receive higher initial compensation. Challenging this prevailing assumption, we acknowledge the drawbacks of extensive career mobility and predict an inverted U-shape relationship between CEO generalist career experience and CEO initial compensation. Integrating the generalism and specialization views of human capital, we postulate that at an initial level,...