Does educational background of chief executive officers influence impression management?

This study examines influence of chief executive officer (CEO) educational background on impression management with a focus on three dimensions, including education level, management, business and accounting (MBA) and reputation of the university. The process was achieved by collecting data on impression management from banking companies in Indonesia covering 2013–2022. Moreover, the purposive sampling method was used to select the 356 bank-year observations to be analyzed. The analysis conducted using ordinary least square in Eviews 12 showed that education level, MBA and reputation of the university positively influenced impression management. CEOs with quality education formed better ethical behavior by encouraging clarity of information and avoiding misleading the subordinates based on impression management tactics. The results were observed to fully support the Upper Echelons Theory and were further confirmed through quantile regression, coarsed exact matching and robustness tests. This study is the first to comprehensively analyze the dimensions of CEO educational background on impression management.