Dear all, I am pleased to invite you to the seminar organised by the Department of Economics at Ca' Foscari University of Venice, which can be followed via Zoom.

Time: Wednesday 27th of September, at 10.30 Location: Campus San Giobbe, Meeting Room 1 Zoom: https://www.unive.it/data/agenda/3/77644

Speaker: Melvyn Weeks (University of Cambridge) Title: Making Sense of Natural Language: Measuring Cultural Fit and Its Impact on Managerial Tenure

Abstract: We create measures for managers' cultural fit using one of the latest machine learning technologies – the sentence embedding model - by analysing 11.5 million speeches in earnings calls. A better cultural fit is significantly and positively correlated with managerial tenure. We demonstrate that the effect of cultural fit on managerial tenure is causal using causal survival forests. Firms that hire culturally disruptive managers have lower future market values and performance. The stock market reacts positively to signals that indicate low cultural dispersion within the firm.