Explorer CEOs: The effect of CEO career variety on large firms’ relative exploration orientation
- Prior studies demonstrate that firms need to make smart trade-off decisions between exploration and exploitation activities in order to increase performance. Chief executive officers (CEOs) are principal decision makers of a firm’s strategic posture. In this study, we theorize and empirically examine how relative exploration orientation of large publicly listed firms varies based on the career variety of their CEOs – that is, how diverse the professional experiences of executives were prior to them becoming CEOs. We further argue that the heterogeneity and structure of the top management team moderates the impact of CEO career variety on firms’ relative exploration orientation. Based on multisource secondary data for 318 S&P 500 firms from 2005 to 2015, we find that CEO career variety is positively associated with relative exploration orientation. Interestingly, CEOs with high career varieties appear to be less effective in pursuing exploration, when they work with highly heterogeneous and structurally interdependent top management teams.
Author: | Zexiong Yan, Steffen Strese, Constanze ChwallekORCiD |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.21269/11632 |
Parent Title (English): | G-Forum Jahreskonferenz 2018 |
Document Type: | Conference Proceeding |
Language: | English |
Year of Completion: | 2018 |
Date of the Publication (Server): | 2024/08/26 |
Tag: | CEO career variety; Relative exploration orientation; TMT composition; TMT structure; upper echelons theory |
Length: | 42 Seiten |
Note: | G-Forum Jahreskonferenz 2018, 11. – 12. Oktober 2018, Haus der Wirtschaft Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart 2018; 22. Interdisziplinäre Jahreskonferenz zu Entrepreneurship, Innovation und Mittelstand “Mastering the Digital Transformation: Corporate Entrepreneurship as a Fast Track to Innovation” |
Link: | Konferenzprogramm |
Zugriffsart: | weltweit |
Institutes: | FH Aachen / Fachbereich Wirtschaftswissenschaften |