Instances of CEOs committing career suicide by engaging in unethical behaviors that leave them jobless, stigmatized, and unable to find employment in a position of equal status are prevalent. However, organizational scholars have done little to explore the cognitive and organizational processes that lead to these highly consequential downfalls. Drawing from signaling theory and moral licensing theory, we propose a multi-stage process model of career suicide. In doing so, we theorize that the process that leads to CEO career suicide is one that unfolds gradually over time and is the result of a moral self-regulation process heavily informed by the social context. We theorize that these are not one-off events, nor are they simply the result of “bad apples” attaining high status. Rather, emboldened by signals of observer licensing, the CEO’s unethical behavior escalates to a level that threatens the organization so severely that it has no choice but to act.
