Innovation objectives, managerial education and firm performance — an exploratory analysis

Abstract

Personal intuition and casual observation of the business press suggest that people matter. The characteristics of top managers, e.g., their educational background, their career paths, and their personal traits, play some role in the assessment of a firm’s prospects. This does not just reflect the demand for managerial folklore. Some narrative accounts in the management literature, e.g., in entrepreneurship, also attest to the importance of individuals (see, e.g., Roberts 1991). Historical studies have linked firm strategy, performance, and idiosyncratic characteristics of top executives — Chandler’s (1962) study of organizational structure and strategy being a particularly well-known example. Thus, one cannot simply ignore the potential relationship between a firm’s performance and the talents, skills, and training of its top managers. Yet, this nexus has played only a minor role in the literature on strategic management or organization1.