Abstract

Executive functional experience may shape how firms evaluate uncertain investments, yet its organizational consequences depend on the capabilities and governance arrangements through which decisions are implemented. This study examines the association between chief executive officer marketing experience and investment efficiency in publicly listed nonfinancial firms operating in digital industries. Drawing on upper echelons theory, agency theory, the resource-based view, and dynamic capability theory, it proposes innovation capability as a mediating mechanism and corporate governance quality as a moderating condition. The reported panel analysis covers 2014 2025 and includes 4,326 observations. Marketing experience is positively associated with the reported investment-efficiency measure across baseline specifications. The innovation analysis is consistent with a positive indirect relationship, while the governance interaction indicates a stronger conditional association under higher governance scores. Subsample estimates are larger in highly digital industries, large enterprises, and private firms, although formal between-group tests are not supplied. Alternative specifications retain positive coefficients. These results support examining marketing experience as a potential contribution to investment judgment rather than treating marketing leadership exclusively as a driver of revenue growth. However, the stated negative-absolute-residual definition of investment efficiency conflicts with its positive reported descriptive values. The outcome transformation, sample construction, and complete estimation outputs therefore require reconciliation before causal or economic magnitudes can be established. The study contributes an integrated account of executive experience, organizational innovation, and governance complementarity, with implications for executive selection, investment oversight, and the evaluation of intangible investments.