UC Riverside

This paper examines whether the facial structure of chief executive officers (CEOs) is related to their firms’ internal control. The CEOs’ facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR ) is used as a measure of the CEO’s risk appetite, and audit fees are used as a measure of the firms’ internal control quality. Several audit fee variables are also added to this model: assets (auditee size), subsidiaries (complexity), and the percentage of assets in receivables and inventories (audit risk). CEOs’ fWHR were measured with the help of ImageJ software. Using data collected from firms’ balance sheet, 10k and proxy statements, I test the hypothesis that the higher a CEO’s fWHR, the lower the quality of internal control within the CEO’s company. By using 306 measurable pictures and 261 good quality pictures of CEOs from the list of Fortune 500 companies in 2015, I found there was no significant correlation between CEO facial structure and their firms’ internal control .