Using Coarsened Exact Matching Method: Caste- or Religion-Based Social Proximity Influences in CEO Appointments in India

Author: Naga Damaraju, Ph.D., et al.

Publication: SAGE Research Methods Cases

Publication Date: 2019

Abstract:
This case study discusses the research methods we used to determine whether professional CEO appointments in India are influenced by the same caste/religion considerations of the firms’ owners and the consequent impact on firm performance. The case elaborates the various challenges we encountered in collecting and analyzing relevant data. The case also examines the use of Coarsened Exact Matching for building a comparison group of candidates which serve as counterfactuals, that is, those that could have been chosen to be CEOs but were not eventually chosen. In addition, we discuss how we resolved endogeneity issues.