IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ororsc/v12y2001i1p1-18.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Top Management Team Heterogeneity: Personality, Power, and Proxies

Author

Listed:
  • Patricia Pitcher

    (Hautes Études Commerciales, 3000 chemin de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3T 2A7)

  • Anne D. Smith

    (The University of New Mexico, Anderson Schools of Management, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131)

Abstract

This article reports partial results of an eight-year field study of the Top Management Teams (TMTs) of a global multidivisional financial services corporation and compares those results with large-sample work in the TMT literature. In particular, it investigates the operationalization of TMT cognitive diversity by the proxies of age, team tenure, industry experience, and functional background heterogeneity most often used in statistical work, and compares those operationalizations with cognitive diversity itself. In addition to highlighting which proxies seemed to most closely approximate cognitive diversity and why, it demonstrates the confounding impact of power on all operationalizations. A comparison of the field results with three representative studies with respect to the operationalization of the dependent variables of diversification, innovation, and performance helps to explain why previous TMT heterogeneity research has often produced inconsistent results or nonfindings. It offers some suggestions that should improve the robustness of statistical research and demonstrates the reciprocal usefulness of case and large-sample research.

Suggested Citation

  • Patricia Pitcher & Anne D. Smith, 2001. "Top Management Team Heterogeneity: Personality, Power, and Proxies," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 12(1), pages 1-18, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:12:y:2001:i:1:p:1-18
    DOI: 10.1287/orsc.12.1.1.10120
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/orsc.12.1.1.10120
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/orsc.12.1.1.10120?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Danny Miller, 1991. "Stale in the Saddle: CEO Tenure and the Match Between Organization and Environment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 37(1), pages 34-52, January.
    2. Deborah Dougherty, 1992. "Interpretive Barriers to Successful Product Innovation in Large Firms," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 3(2), pages 179-202, May.
    3. Alan I. Murray, 1989. "Top management group heterogeneity and firm performance," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(S1), pages 125-141, June.
    4. Hema A. Krishnan & Alex Miller & William Q. Judge, 1997. "Diversification and top management team complementarity: is performance improved by merging similar or dissimilar teams?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(5), pages 361-374, May.
    5. Prithviraj Chattopadhyay & William H. Glick & C. Chet Miller & George P. Huber, 1999. "Determinants of executive beliefs: comparing functional conditioning and social influence," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(8), pages 763-790, August.
    6. Richard L. Priem, 1994. "Executive Judgment, Organizational Congruence, and Firm Performance," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 5(3), pages 421-437, August.
    7. Peter J. Brews & Michelle R. Hunt, 1999. "Learning to plan and planning to learn: resolving the planning school/learning school debate," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(10), pages 889-913, October.
    8. Sara L. Keck, 1997. "Top Management Team Structure: Differential Effects by Environmental Context," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 8(2), pages 143-156, April.
    9. Richard L. Priem, 1990. "Top management team group factors, consensus, and firm performance," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(6), pages 469-478, October.
    10. Nicholas Athanassiou & Douglas Nigh, 1999. "The impact of U.S. company internationalization on top management team advice networks: a tacit knowledge perspective," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(1), pages 83-92, January.
    11. Karen A. Bantel & Susan E. Jackson, 1989. "Top management and innovations in banking: Does the composition of the top team make a difference?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(S1), pages 107-124, June.
    12. Don Knight & Craig L. Pearce & Ken G. Smith & Judy D. Olian & Henry P. Sims & Ken A. Smith & Patrick Flood, 1999. "Top management team diversity, group process, and strategic consensus," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(5), pages 445-465, May.
    13. Anthony L. Iaquinto & James W. Fredrickson, 1997. "Top Management Team Agreement About The Strategic Decision Process: A Test Of Some Of Its Determinants And Consequences," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(1), pages 63-75, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ramos-Garza, Claudia, 2009. "TMT strategic consensus in Mexican companies," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 62(9), pages 854-860, September.
    2. Amason, Allen C. & Shrader, Rodney C. & Tompson, George H., 2006. "Newness and novelty: Relating top management team composition to new venture performance," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 125-148, January.
    3. Sonja Sperber & Christian Linder, 2018. "The impact of top management teams on firm innovativeness: a configurational analysis of demographic characteristics, leadership style and team power distribution," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 285-316, January.
    4. Krishnan, Hema A. & Park, Daewoo, 2005. "A few good women--on top management teams," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 58(12), pages 1712-1720, December.
    5. Theresa S. Cho & Donald C. Hambrick, 2006. "Attention as the Mediator Between Top Management Team Characteristics and Strategic Change: The Case of Airline Deregulation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(4), pages 453-469, August.
    6. Deniz Ucbasaran & Andy Lockett & Mike Wright & Paul Westhead, 2003. "Entrepreneurial Founder Teams: Factors Associated with Member Entry and Exit," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 28(2), pages 107-128, March.
    7. Olie René & Heijltjes Mariëlle G. & Glunk Ursula, 2003. "Continuity And Renewal At The Top: Performance Effects Of The Level, Extent, Type And Frequency Of Top Management Team Changes," Research Memorandum 059, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
    8. Bendell, Bari L. & Nesij Huvaj, M., 2020. "Does stakeholder engagement through corporate social and environmental behaviors affect innovation?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 685-696.
    9. Nicholas A. Athanassiou & Kendall Roth, 2006. "International experience heterogeneity effects on top management team advice networks: A hierarchical analysis," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 46(6), pages 749-770, December.
    10. Juan Pablo Diánez-González & Carmen Camelo-Ordaz, 2016. "How management team composition affects academic spin-offs’ entrepreneurial orientation: the mediating role of conflict," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 530-557, June.
    11. Mercedes Rodríguez-Fernández & Ana I. Gaspar-González & Eva M. Sánchez-Teba, 2020. "Does Diversity in Top Management Teams Contribute to Organizational Performance? The Response of the IBEX 35 Companies," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-16, March.
    12. Rivas, Jose Luis, 2012. "Diversity & internationalization: The case of boards and TMT's," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 1-12.
    13. Daily, Catherine M. & Dalton, Dan R., 2000. "Executive briefing/Corporate governance digest," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 4-6.
    14. Carmen Camelo & Mariluz Fernández‐Alles & Ana B. Hernández, 2010. "Strategic consensus, top management teams, and innovation performance," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 31(6), pages 678-695, September.
    15. Naranjo-Gil, David & Hartmann, Frank, 2007. "Management accounting systems, top management team heterogeneity and strategic change," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 32(7-8), pages 735-756.
    16. Marte C. W. Solheim & Sverre J. Herstad, 2018. "The Differentiated Effects of Human Resource Diversity on Corporate Innovation," International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management (IJITM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 15(05), pages 1-25, October.
    17. Musteen, Martina & Barker III, Vincent L. & Baeten, Virginia L., 2006. "CEO attributes associated with attitude toward change: The direct and moderating effects of CEO tenure," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 59(5), pages 604-612, May.
    18. Rapert, Molly Inhofe & Velliquette, Anne & Garretson, Judith A., 2002. "The strategic implementation process: evoking strategic consensus through communication," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 55(4), pages 301-310, April.
    19. Dalton, Dan R. & Daily, Catherine M., 1998. "Executive briefing/corporate governance digest," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 6-7.
    20. Yaping Gong, 2006. "The impact of subsidiary top management team national diversity on subsidiary performance: Knowledge and legitimacy perspectives," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 46(6), pages 771-790, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:12:y:2001:i:1:p:1-18. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.