Top Executives, Turnover and Firm Performance in Germany

This paper examines executive turnover -- both for management and supervisory boards - - and its relation to firm performance in the largest companies in Germany in the 1980s. The management board turns over slowly -- at a rate of 10% per year -- implying that top executives in Germany have longer tenures than their counterparts in the U.S. and Japan. Turnover of the management board increases significantly with stock performance and particularly poor (i.e. negative) earnings, but is unrelated to sales growth and earnings growth. Turnover of the supervisory board is not consistently related to any measure of performance.