The Evolution of U.S. Top Executives’ Career Trajectories: An Empirical Examination

Abstract

We explore changes in the career trajectories of the top executives of U.S. corporations over the last decades. We focus on two aspects of career trajectories: work-context specific experience and work- context diversity. Building on prior literature, we argue that environmental and business changes have altered the relative costs and benefits of having work-context specific human capital and diverse work-context skills. We also argue that these changes have differently affected executives, depending on their roles. Using data on individuals appointed to top executive roles in the Fortune 100 corporations between 1949 and 2011, we find evidence of important changes in the paths taken by top executives to their executive roles. There has been a decrease in firm- and industry-specific experience for all executives, though the decrease has been bigger for general managers and product functional specialists than for administrative functional specialists. We also find that there has been an increase in employer and industry diversity for all executives, but a decrease in functional diversity, mostly driven by functional specialists. Overall, our results highlight the importance of investigating different facets of careers separately, as they have changed in different ways. They also underscore the importance of considering the nature of the executive role, as different roles are associated with different career paths.