Furthermore, we focus on verbal mimicry between CEO and another senior executive, i.e.,CFO, instead of verbal mimicry of the whole TMT because examining interactions and dynamics within “subteams” of TMTs who are relevant in certain decision making situations can improve the predictive strength of upper echelons theory (Hambrick, 2007). Specifically, we choose the CEO-CFO dyad because CEOs are the primary corporate decision makers (Finkelstein et al.,2009) and almost all the U.S. public firms have the CFO position (Zorn, 2004). Also, due to corporate scandals in the early 2000s (e.g., Enron and WorldCom) and the implementation of the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation, the responsibility of CFO within the executive team has dramatically increased (Geiger & Taylor, 2003). While the CEO is still expected to take overall responsibility for firm performance and strategy, the CFO is shouldering an increasingly important role in corporate financial as well as strategic decisions (Datta & Iskandar-Datta, 2014; Tulimieri & Banai, 2010; Zorn, 2004; Zorn, Dobbin, & Kwok, 2004). In addition, in many public companies, the CFO—instead of other non-CEO top managers—tends to appear publically with the CEO to communicate with investors and security analysts (Tulimieri & Banai, 2010), providing a feasible empirical setting to study CEO-CFO verbal mimicry.