For both practitioners and researchers, span of control plays an important role in defining and understanding the role of the CEO. In this paper, we combine organizational chart information for a sample of 65 companies with detailed data on how their CEOs allocate their work time, which we define as their span of activity. Span of activity provides a direct measure of the CEOs management style, including the attention devoted to specific subordinates and functions, the time devoted to individual work and outside constituencies, a preference for multilateral or bilateral interaction, the degree of planning, etc. We find that CEOs with a larger number of reports spend more time with subordinates, more time on large meetings, less time on unplanned activities. The presence of a delegate, such as the COO, allows the CEO to reduce the time spent with insiders and to focus on bilateral and unplanned activities. These results suggest that time-use information is helpful in interpreting how span of control determines management style. Full Paper 
A CEO's schedule is especially important to a firm's financial success, which raises a few questions: What do they do all day? Can they be more efficient time managers? HBS professor Raffaella Sadun and colleagues set out to find some answers. Key concepts include:
- On average, some 85 percent of a CEO's time was spent working with other people, with only 15 percent spent working alone.
- The time CEOs spent with outsiders had no measurable impact on firm performance. But time spent with other people inside the company was strongly correlated with positive increases in productivity.
- In companies with stronger governance, CEOs spent more time with insiders and less time with outsiders, and at the same time were more productive.
- The research could help CEOs learn to be more productive.
This paper utilizes data collected on time use for different work activities by 94 CEOs of top-600 Italian firms. It analyses the correlation between time use, managerial effort, quality of governance and firm performance and interpret the empirical findings under the context of effective corporate governance as well as imperfect governance. Full Paper
This book provides an understanding of what drives the formation of a ruling class, and the relationship between politics and business firms. Focusing on Italy, it uses labour economics to analyse the selection of the ruling class, the labour market of politicians, the allocation of managers' time, and their incentives, remunerations, and career paths. It draws on contributions from two teams of leading scholars and on research undertaken by the Fondazione Rodolfo DeBenedetti.
This report utilizes extensive information collected on information on the characteristics of Italian managers and of the firms that employ them. It analyses the incentive structure that managers face, their career profile, and their use of time. Our data indicate that a fraction of firms - especially non-family firms and multinationals - while other firms - especially family firms and firms that operate on the national market only - instead adopt a fidelity model of managerial talent development. Full Paper