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The HRD (Human Resources Director)-MD (Managing Director) Double Act

In: Handbook of Top Management Teams

Author

Listed:
  • Frank Bournois
  • Catherine Voynnet-Fourboul

Abstract

The study of strategic leadership and top management teams blossomed in the 1980s. There had indeed been previous studies by Barnard (1938), on the roles of the top executive, and by Stewart (1982). The idea now gaining prevalence in this area of research is that company results are the direct reflection of the characteristics and actions of a small group of top executives (Finkelstein and Hambrick, 1996) heading the organisation. This presupposes that human bias, social filters and idiosyncratic processes at the top of organisations can have a substantial impact upon competitive behaviour (Hambrick and Cho Chen, 1996). Initial research was centred upon the Chairman and Managing Director as individual leader and then, in the mid-1980s, it moved its focus to the upper echelon as a whole team. The underlying hypothesis is that the characteristics and functioning of the top management team are better predictors of the organisation’s results than the characteristics of the CEO on his own (Hambrick and Mason, 1984). Thus a growing number of researchers have sought to understand the internal functioning of top management teams.

Suggested Citation

  • Frank Bournois & Catherine Voynnet-Fourboul, 2010. "The HRD (Human Resources Director)-MD (Managing Director) Double Act," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Frank Bournois & Jérôme Duval-Hamel & Sylvie Roussillon & Jean-Louis Scaringella (ed.), Handbook of Top Management Teams, chapter 9, pages 97-101, Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-30533-5_10
    DOI: 10.1057/9780230305335_10
    as

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