Shu Fen Chuah - School of Management, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia
Swee-Sim Foong - School of Distance Education, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia

This study explores whether CEO foreignness affects CEOs abilities and firm performance. We study 361 firms in Malaysia over 2011-2015. First, we estimate CEOs abilities via DEA and Tobit regression. We found that foreign CEOs are at least two times more able than local CEOs with foreign experience. We then found that ability of these two types of CEOs significantly leads to higher firm performance, especially in firms with higher international sales. We further reveal the impacts of ‘familiness’ on local CEOs firms and show that foreign non-family CEOs are the professional CEOs with highest abilities while ability of family CEOs with no foreign exposure is negatively related to firm performance

CEO Ability; Data Envelopment Analysis; International Sales; Familiness; Firm Performance