Spreading the Style : The Effect of Firm Leaders’ Early Life Experiences on Employees’ Behavior and Performance

We demonstrate that firm leaders’ personal traits formed from their early life experiences affect employees’ behavior and performance at work. In the context of securities companies in China, we show that chairpersons’ adolescent experience as “sent-down youths”(SDYs) during the Cultural Revolution, which contributes to a “down-to-earth” style featuring a willingness to endeavor and an emphasis on fact checking, increases the number of site visits made by securities analysts and the accuracy of the earnings forecasts that analysts generate for the listed firms that they cover. Thus, the “style”of a firm leader spreads within an organization to other employees