Abstract
AbstractIs it good or bad for senior executives to have strong interpersonal ties to the CEO? We argue that a strong relationship with the CEO raises the likelihood that a top manager stays in office or makes an upward career move when the CEO leaves office voluntarily. At the same time, such interpersonal ties also reinforce the negative spillover effects of a dismissal of the CEO on the career prospects of the manager concerned. Our empirical analysis lends support to both arguments. We contribute to managerial succession research by underlining the ambivalence of interpersonal ties within top management teams.
Highlights
Close interpersonal ties to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) are widely regarded as an important asset for other members of a firm’s top management team (TMT)
5.1 Summary and Discussion In this paper, we have investigated the implications of interpersonal ties to the CEO for the career prospects of top managers
Strong interpersonal ties increase the likelihood that individual TMT members stay in office
Summary
Close interpersonal ties to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) are widely regarded as an important asset for other members of a firm’s top management team (TMT). At the same time, having strong ties to the CEO may be detrimental to senior managers, in particular when the CEO faces severe criticism and is dismissed In these situations an executive, who has a close relationship with the CEO, may be seen as the CEO’s “partner in crime”, which could raise the likelihood that they, too, are dismissed, and hurt their chances of being promoted to the vacant CEO position. This “dark side” of strong interpersonal ties has largely been ignored in the literature to date. Our findings add to managerial succession research (Cao, Maruping, and Takeuchi 2006; Fee and Hadlock 2004; Mian 2001; Shen and Cannella 2002a) by highlighting the ambivalence of strong interpersonal ties
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