Upper Echelons Research Revisited: Antecedents, Elements, and Consequences of Top Management Team Composition

Abstract

This study reviews recent research building on Hambrick and Mason’s [Hambrick, D. C., & Mason, P. A. (1984). Upper echelons: The organization as a reflection of its top managers. Academy of Management Review, 9: 193–206] upper echelons (UE) perspective with the aim of identifying challenges and opportunities for future UE-based organizations research. Our review highlights a number of central facets of the UE perspective: It is at once a theoretical framework predicting that organizations will be a reflection of their top management teams and a methodology that relies on executive demography as a measurement proxy for underlying individual and group cognitions and behaviors. In proposing new research directions, we challenge organizations researchers to (1) reconsider the universality of the top management team (TMT) construct, (2) carefully explore the practical and theoretical meaning of TMT demographic characteristics vis-à-vis the deeper constructs they are presumed to proxy, (3) integrate other determinants of managerial cognition and behavior into UE theorizing, and (4) revisit the roles of causality and intertemporal dynamics among the antecedents, consequences, and composition of top management teams.

The economic psychology of incentives: An international study of top managers

“…Agents will perform if they have the ability (the necessary knowledge, skills and aptitude), the motivation, and the right opportunities (including the necessary work structures and business environment). The mechanism which links the job performance of an individual agent with the performance of the firm is explained by incorporating upper-echelons theory (Carpenter, Geletkanycz, & Sanders, 2004;Finkelstein, Hambrick, & Cannella, 2009;Hambrick & Mason, 1984). This postulates a causal connection between business performance (the dependent variable), the cognitive skills of top managers, their observable personal characteristics (e.g., age, education, experience, socio-economic background etc.…”

“…A tacit assumption is that a firm's business strategy is devised and implemented by the top management team. "Top managers" (and hence the "top management team") are defined as the most senior executives of a company who are responsible for defining and executing a firm's strategy and who, through their actions, are capable of affecting the company's profits, share price, reputation and market positioning (Carpenter et al, 2004;Pepper, 2006). Behavioral-agency theory places much greater emphasis on agent motivation than the standard agency model, which focuses primarily on the alignment of the interests of principals and agents (Eisenhardt, 1989).…”

Human capital and SME internationalization: a structural equation modeling study

“…According to "upper echelon theory" (Hambrick & Mason, 1984), organizational outcomes, including strategic choices and performance levels, are partially predicted by managerial background characteristics. Other authors have expanded this theory to international contexts focusing on international orientation and international experience (Athanassiou & Nigh, 2002;Reuber & Fischer, 1997;Sambharya, 1996;Vida, Reardon, & Fairhurst, 2000), international assignment (Carpenter, Sanders, & Gregersen, 2000), and the heterogeneity of TMTs (education and tenure) (Carpenter, 2002;Carpenter, Geletkanycz, Sanders, 2004).…”

¿influye La Personalidad De Los Directivos De Pymes en Los Resultados Exportadores?

“…Esta postura implica aplicar una lógica tradicional, fruto de una cultura reactiva, en la resolución de problemas, toma de decisiones, actitudes y comportamientos empresariales (Schwartz & Bardi, 2001). Sus repercusiones Algunos estudios ha evidenciado los planteamientos expuestos (Carpenter, Geletkanycz, & Sanders, 2004;Hambrick, 2007). Sin embargo, en el ámbito exportador, como señalan Sousa et al (Sousa et al, 2010)) existe un importante desconocimiento del papel que desempeñan los valores de los responsables de exportación en las decisiones adoptadas y éxito alcanzado por la empresa exportadora en los mercados exteriores, a pesar de que algunos trabajos han mostrado la gran relevancia de su estudio (Leonidou, Katsikeas, & Piercy, 1998).…”