Interesting paper by Hutton et al. reports that:
Our key conjecture is that financially conservative Republican managers would adopt more conservative corporate policies than managers with Democratic orientation. Using individual-level political contributions of managers as a proxy for their political preferences, we show that managers self-select into firms and industries with political environment that is closely aligned with their own personal political values. Further, we show that firms with Republican managers have more conservative corporate policies. Specifically, Republican managers choose lower levels of corporate debt, lower levels of capital investments, lower R&D expenditures, and pay more dividends. Their cautious investment policies make firms less risky, generate higher profitability, and allow firms to retain more earnings, which in turn reduce corporate leverage. Conservative corporate and local cultures also induce conservative corporate policies, but the impact of managerial financial conservatism is the strongest.
Which is probably why you want some loony lefties like Bill Gates running your start up and some solid Main Street GOPer like George Schultz running your mature multinational.
