Will human capital humble CEOs? Effects of career variety and education

ABSTRACT

Integrating human capital theory, social information processing theory, and literature on humble leadership behaviours, this study takes an initial step to investigate the effects of CEO human capital on CEO humble leadership behaviours. We developed a model that explains how experience human capital (career variety) and education human capital (education level and elite education) independently and jointly influence CEO humble leadership behaviours. We examined the proposed model using multi-source data. The data of the independent variables were hand-collected from multiple sources, including the CSMAR database, corporate websites, and press releases. The data of the dependent variable were collected with an online survey from 175 listed companies. We found that career variety positively influenced CEO humble leadership behaviours, while elite education was negatively associated with CEO humble leadership behaviours. Moreover, career variety and education level had a positive interaction effect on CEO humble leadership behaviours, while career variety and elite education had a negative interaction effect on CEO humble leadership behaviours. Our findings highlight that different types of human capital may exert different impacts. Moreover, apart from the direct impact of one specific type of human capital, various types of human capital can interact to influence CEO humble leadership behaviours.

KEYWORDS:

• CEO humble leadership behaviours
• career variety
• educational background
• human capital theory
• social information processing theory
• elite education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author[s].

Data availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant No. 72072180; 72202224; 72074135], Humanities and Social Sciences Foundation of Ministry of Education of China [Grant No. 18YJC630277], and Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. ZR2023QG007].