Here a Chief, There a Chief
The Rise of the CFO in the American Firm
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4522095 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Dirk M Zorn (Princeton University), Dirk Zorn (Princeton University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2004 |
| Volume | 69 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 345-364 |
| Publication date | 2004-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Sociological Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-1224 • E-ISSN: 1939-8271 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/000312240406900302 |
| OpenAlex | W2125047636 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 47 |
| References cited | 32 |
This article examines the rise of the chief financial officer (CFO) position among American firms during the period 1963-2000. Building on event-history models of CFO adoptions among a sample of some 400 large corporations, this analysis documents two stages in the diffusion of the CFO model that occurred prior to its ultimate embodiment of the shareholder-value ideal. The CFO function originated as part of the conglomerate ideal to handle the funding of diversifying acquisitions. In response to an ambiguous regulatory change in accounting rules in 1979, which threatened to reduce reported earnings further at a time when corporate earnings already were under great strain, corporate leaders and finance professionals reconstructed the CFO as a solution. The CFO's popularity quickly surged as a result, and the role kept expanding in the following years to focus on managing shareholders and stock prices
Business · Chief executive officer · Corporate governance · Earnings · Economics · Enterprise value · Event study · Management · Political science · Popularity · Position (finance · Sample (material · Shareholder · Shareholder value · Accounting · Banking stability, regulation, efficiency · Corporate Finance and Governance · Finance · Law · Management and Organizational Studies
An Engine, Not a Camera
Economic Sociology
The financialization of the American economy
Complementarity in the CEO-CFO interface
Fisher-Modigliani-Miller organisational finance theory and the financialisation of contemporary societies
The Rise and Impact of Financial Capitalism
Why Financial Executives Do Bad Things
Occupational Identity Formation in Unsaturated Spaces
How TaxTech rewires global wealth chains
The Corporate Restructuring Imperative
The Financial Premium in the US Labor Market
Explaining Pay Disparities between Top Executives and Nonexecutive Employees
Marketing Metrics That Contribute to Marketing Accountability in the Technology Sector
The mutual constitution of legal environments and practices
The historical and cultural construction of legitimated interests
Financialization takes off at Boeing
Theoretical Introduction to the Special Issue on the Embedded Enterprise
De l’allégeance à la rue de Rivoli au pèlerinage de Wall Street. Financiarisation et professionnalisation des directeurs financiers dans l’énergie et la défense
L’évolution du métier de directeur financier
Ownership infinity pools
The myth of the shareholder revolution and the financialization of the firm
Crisis and Upgrading
Zur Erklärung von Diffusionsprozessen. Das Beispiel der Einführung staatlicher Lotterien in den USA / Explaining Diffusion
Public CFO competencies – A National Defence case study examining the balance between financial and strategic priorities
Techno-market fix”? Decoding wealth through mobile money in the global South
Players and Arenas
Financialization of the Economy
La courbe parétienne des revenus et la sociologie économique
The Conditional Nature of Embeddedness
The Financialization of International Law
Financiarisation et fractures socio-spatiales
If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You the Boss? Explaining the Persistent Vertical Gender Gap in Management
Patient capital in the age of financialized managerialism
Financialization and corporate downsizing as a shareholder value strategy
Das Unternehmen und seine Aktionäre
The firm-territory nexus in a fragmented economy
A sociologia dos mercados
Les représentations professionnelles en question. Le cas des intermédiaires dans les fusions-acquisitions
Une financiarisation à la française (1979-2009)
L'entreprise et ses actionnaires
The New Finance Capital
The Sociology of Markets
Shareholder Activism and Alienation
State activism and the hidden incentives behind bank acquisitions
Law, governance, and finance
The origins and early diffusion of 'shareholder value' in the United States
From social control to financial economics
Institutional patterns and organizations
The iron cage revisited institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields
The Visible Hand
Big Business and the State
Irrationality and Contradiction in Organizational Change
The Spread of the Multidivisional Form Among Large Firms, 1919-1979
A Formal Theory of Differentiation in Organizations
The Decline and Fall of the Conglomerate Firm in the 1980s
The Iron Cage Revisited
The Social Construction of Market Value
The Market that Antitrust Built
Diffusion in Organizations and Social Movements
Legal Ambiguity and Symbolic Structures
Legal Environments and Organizational Governance
Institutionalized Organizations
Civil Rights Law at Work
The Strength of a Weak State
| Unique citing works | 47 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,24 |
| Citation span | 2005 - 2026 (22) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 47 |