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Research into managerial jobs and behaviour has been appropriately criticized for being acontextual and atheoretical. Hales (1986) suggested that role theory could provide one suitable theoretical framework. This article assesses the merit of that suggestion and then develops it by proposing a theoretical model of the antecedents of a manager's impact on the expectations held by others that partially define the job. The analysis integrates research from the fields of managerial behaviour, leadership dyads, symbolic interactionism, and idiosyncratic jobs to produce a more comprehensive model of the determinants of 'expectation enactment' in managerial jobs. It brings an enactment or 'emergence' perspective to the field of managerial jobs and behaviour that is consistent with recent developments in other parts of the organizations and management studies literature. Implications for future research are discussed.

This model applies theories of organizational socialization to characterize the aspiring entrepreneur's journey from neophyte to firm founder and to Identify factors that may Influence the transition from a pre-organization to the formation of a new organization. The model distinguishes two identifiable stages which shape organization formation—Anticipatory Socialization and New Entrepreneur Socialization. Anticipatory Socialization characterizes the predisposing characteristics and experiences that precede the cognitive choice to become an entrepreneur. New Entrepreneur Socialization specifies the critical variables that Influence the new recruit once the decision Is made to start a firm. Three factors determine the transition into the entrepreneurial role: Motivational Bases for Adaptation, Socializing Agents and the Structural Context of the Entrepreneurial Setting. The eventual outcome of entrepreneurial socialization, Organization Formation, Is the survival or discontinuance of the venture. A model of entrepreneurial socialization focuses attention on the adaptive Intra-personal and Inter-personal processes that shape the new venture creation process.

This paper utilizes socialization theory to describe why some chief executive successions lead to a change in a ®rm's strategic direction and others do not. We argue that socialization theory permits the identi®cation of a constellation of individual and situational characteristics that can drive or restrain strategic change following succession. Speci®cally, we develop a framework of how dierences in chief executives' prior work experience, educational background, personal characteristics, and dierences in the role's requirements and socialization agents' characteristics, can all serve as forces driving or restraining the likelihood of strategic change. This perspective goes beyond the distinction between a successor's origin as an organizational insider or outsider used in previous research to explain the strategic implication of chief executive succession. It provides a description of an underlying process ± socialization ± that constitutes a theoretical rationale for the link between executive successions and strategic outcomes.