PhD Thesis Defense - Neslihan Yılmaz

“CSR, Managerial Overconfidence and Risk-Taking Incentives”

Neslihan Yılmaz, Ph.D. in Business Administration

• Date: 10.06.2025
• Time: 17:00
• Location: AB2.301

PhD Thesis Committee:

• Prof. Işıl Erol, Özyeğin University
• Asst. Prof. Özlem Akın, Özyeğin University
• Asst. Prof. Erkan Yönder, Concordia University
• Prof. Oğuzhan Özbaş, Bilkent University
• Prof. Neslihan Yılmaz, Boğaziçi University

ABSTRACT:

Since Freeman (1984) laid the theoretical foundation with stakeholder theory, corporate social responsibility’s importance in firm management has dramatically increased.  Today, the value of stakeholder management is comprehended and integrated into firms’ business plans.

The first chapter of my dissertation examines the impact of both individual and team-level overconfidence and pessimism on CSR performance, while the second chapter explores how managerial risk-taking incentives and overconfidence influence CSR performance.

Executive overconfidence has been vastly studied since the 2000s. However, research is restricted mainly to CEO overconfidence, excluding CFOs and interaction between CEOs and CFOs. Managerial pessimism is examined in the context of overconfidence rather than as discrete behavior. This study involves pessimism and CEO and CFO interactions to embrace a more comprehensive managerial perspective. Furthermore, studies on the effect of overconfidence on CSR incorporate a single-period analysis.  This study assesses the comparative impacts of managerial overconfidence and pessimism between the two periods.

BIO:

Neslihan Yılmaz completed her B.A. in Business Administration at Marmara University in 1996, followed by an M.Sc. in Finance from Lancaster University (UK) in 1999. After earning her master's degree, she held executive roles in global financial markets at several institutions, including İş Investment Securities (Turkey), Maxis Investments (London), GMP Securities Europe (London), and Ziraat Securities (Turkey), between 2000 and 2015. Following her industry career, she worked as a freelance finance trainer. She is expected to receive her Ph.D. in Finance in June 2025 upon completion of her dissertation titled "CSR, Managerial Overconfidence, and Risk-Taking Incentives."