Past research has shown that the marketing function is struggling for survival in many companies. One of the causes to be blamed for, is internal corporate governance which consists of the composition of the top management team and the compensation given to them. How firms differ in their internal corporate governance and how can internal corporate governance be altered to solve the problem of decline in marketing is what this dissertation is built on.

Essay 1 attempts to address heterogeneity in stock market reaction to new product introduction announcements and strategic alliance announcements by looking at the impact of internal corporate governance on the abnormal returns resulted from these announcements. It is hypothesized that (a) higher pay gap between CEO and the other TMT members may negatively affect the stock returns and (b) if there is high marketing influence in the top management team, the effect of such announcements results in significantly higher returns.

Essay 2 proposes the impact of level of confidence of a CEO on various marketing outcomes like advertising, R&D intensity as well as CSR. Based on upper echelon theory, the essay proposes that the higher the level of confidence, the more the investment in advertising, R&D and CSR. It also predicts that high confidence can increase the chances of product harm crisis, thus affecting the firm negatively.

Essay 3 focuses on how the integrity of the CEO can negatively impact the entrepreneurial orientation - innovativeness, risk taking and proactiveness orientation of the firm, which further impact the risky outlays of the firm, thus mediating the impact of CEO integrity and risky outlays. The essay also proposes how internal corporate governance, specifically, the long term compensation given to the CEO and the composition of marketing in the department, can help overcome this situation along with maintaining the integrity of the CEO.