The more the economy develops, the more important accounting becomes. Based on the data of A-share listed companies from 2007 to 2023, this paper examines the impact of CFO serving as a director on total factor productivity (TFP) and its mechanism of action, aiming to explore the impact of CFO serving as a director on the high-quality development of enterprises in the Chinese context. The results show that CFO serving as a director has a significant negative effect on corporate TFP, and this conclusion remains robust after validation through various estimation methods. At the same time, it is found that the marginal impact of CFO serving as a director on total factor productivity varies under different capital intensities. The mediating effect analysis reveals that CFO serving as a director may indirectly suppress the total factor productivity of enterprises by reducing innovation input. Even after considering the mediating effect of innovation input, there is still a significant direct inhibitory effect of CFO serving as a director on the total factor productivity of enterprises. The lagged analysis results also show that the decisions and actions of CFO serving as a director have a significant inhibitory effect on the total factor productivity of enterprises one period later. Further analysis in this paper finds that this inhibitory effect is not significant in companies with high capital intensity, but is significantly inhibitory in low capital intensity enterprises. The research results of this paper provide a new perspective for understanding the governance effect of CFO serving as a director and provide empirical support for optimizing corporate governance structure and improving total factor productivity.

Meng Jie, Meng Yuxin, Shao Junbo. The Impact of CFO Serving as a Director on Total Factor Productivity. Academic Journal of Business & Management (2025), Vol. 7, Issue 11: 66-73. https://doi.org/10.25236/AJBM.2025.071110.

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