More Than What Meets the Eye: A Matched-pair Study of Values,Motives and Temporal Focus in CEOs Accused of Corporate Misconduct

Corporate scandals that directly implicate chief executives persist in India even after a decade of post-Satyam governance reforms. Existing research has mainly focused on board structures and monitoring mechanisms, leaving the psychological makeup of chief executive officers (CEOs) underexplored. Drawing on the upper echelons theory (UET) and an exploratory and abductive approach, we analysed differences in personal values, motives and temporal focus in two matched CEO pairs (one male pair and one female pair), with each pair comprising a CEO accused of fraud and a matched peer without such allegations, using computer-aided text analysis of eight years of shareholder letters. Within-pair comparisons revealed two patterns that recurred across both pairs: accused CEOs scored lower on self-transcendence, driven primarily by benevolence and lower on present focus than their non-accused counterparts. Beyond these shared markers, the two accused CEOs exhibited qualitatively distinct profiles, with significant differences in motive observed only in the male pair. We propose that lower self-transcendence and lower present focus may serve as psychological markers of misconduct vulnerability, while the pathway from these shared markers to misconduct may take distinct forms. We discuss implications for corporate governance and evidence-based CEO evaluation.