256 Journal of Management Vol. 40 No. 1, January 2014 256–286 DOI: 10.1177/0149206313503013 © The Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav CEO Duality: A Review and Research Agenda Ryan Krause Texas Christian University Matthew Semadeni Indiana University Albert A. Cannella, Jr. Arizona State University CEO duality—the practice of a single individual serving as both CEO and board chair—has been the subject of academic interest for more than 20 years. In that time, boards’ use of CEO duality has fluctuated and the scholarly conceptualizations of the phenomenon have become more complex. As such, the need to understand CEO duality has only increased with time. We review and integrate the disparate literature on this topic so that future attempts to study it will benefit from a more complete understanding of the knowledge already produced. We review the demonstrated antecedents and consequences of CEO duality, pointing out that while much work has been done in this area, much remains that we do not understand. Finally, we offer new theoretical, methodological, and contextual directions that researchers could explore to extend knowledge about CEO duality. Keywords: boards of directors; agency theory; structure, design, and boundaries CEO duality—the practice of a single individual serving as both CEO and board chair—is one of the most widely discussed corporate governance phenomena (Dalton, Hitt, Certo, & Dalton, 2007). Twenty years ago, Finkelstein and D’Aveni (1994) referred to the practice as a “double-edged sword” because of the inherent trade-off between the unity of command asso- ciated with duality and the independent oversight associated with a separate board chair. Since the publication of this foundational article, the landscape of board leadership has changed in Acknowledgments: The authors would like to acknowledge the helpful comments of Associate Editor Sucheta Nadkarni and two anonymous JOM reviewers. Corresponding author: Ryan Krause, Texas Christian University, Box 298530, Fort Worth, TX 76129, USA. E-mail: r.krause@tcu.edu 503013JOM XX X 10.1177/0149206313503013Journal of ManagementKrause et al. / CEO Duality research-article 2013 at ARIZONA STATE UNIV on February 4, 2015 jom.sagepub.com Downloaded from