Over the past three decades, building on upper echelons theory, research has continually demonstrated that CEOs play a central role in strategic decision making and that differences amongst CEOs can help to explain firm strategic actions. Independently, other research has explored how CEOs attend to, and learn from, feedback provided by external stakeholders following announcements of strategic actions. In this dissertation I integrate these two research streams by exploring how CEO psychological characteristics shape the propensity for CEOs to be influenced by stakeholder reactions. I develop and test a theory arguing that some CEO attributes will shape the degree that CEOs are influenced by positive or negative stakeholder reactions to the announcement of a strategic action, while other CEO characteristics will influence the degree that CEOs are influenced by stakeholder reactions in general. More specifically, I focus on two proximal motivational constructs that have been shown to have strong and meaningful impact on behavior: CEO regulatory focus and CEO temporal focus. I develop predictions about how these important attributes influence how CEOs attend to and learn from the reactions by the media and stock market following announcements of large acquisitions.
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