Effect of personal histories of top executives and company headquarters geographical relationship on corporate performance: Empirical study from China

This paper analyses wherever top executives were born and wherever they attended university to reveal regional groupings of the executives that form company culture and strategy in China and the mechanisms by which they affect corporate performance. It was found that the personal histories of top executives affect their decision-making orientation, and, in turn, company culture. The personal histories of executives and intra-regional, intra-provincial and intra-city links of corporate headquarters were obvious factors for executive selection. Distances were higher, and percentages of intra-regional links were lower for higher profit and growth companies. This shows that more competitive companies are more likely to hire executives who have lived in different regions or institutions in their lifetimes and university educations. The study concludes that Chinese firms’ key choices are influenced, in part, by external geographic factors way more advanced than the self-operation of individual enterprises.