Management Team Composition Research Articles

The Relationship Between Knowledge Transfer, Top Management Team Composition, and Performance: The Case of Science–Based Entrepreneurial Firms

The increased pressure put on public research institutes to commercialize their research results has given rise to an increased academic interest in technology transfer. We assess under which conditions tacit knowledge transfer contributes to the performance of academic spin–offs. Using an inductive case study approach, our evidence suggests that tacit knowledge is most effectively transferred when a substantial part of the original research team joins the new venture as founders. Commercial expertise and mindset are also required in the team on the condition that the cognitive distance between the scientific researchers and the person responsible for commercialization is not too large.

Female participation in TMT and firm performance: evidence from Chinese private enterprises

PurposeThis paper proposes an examination of the relationship between female participation in top management teams and firm performance in the emerging Chinese private economy. It aims to examine the direct link between female participation in top management teams and firm performance. This is examined in the context of human capital and social capital associated with female top executives to investigate the origins and the contingencies of the linkage.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on resource dependence theory, the study develops and tests a set of hypotheses regarding the key relationships, using the data of listed private‐owned companies in China's security exchanges in 2008, with critical information on financial performance, corporate governance structure and the top management team composition of the companies. Regression analyses are conducted to test the direct relationship and the moderating effects.FindingsThe empirical analysis supports a positive relationship between the degree of female participation and firm performance in Chinese privately owned companies. The positive relationship is further strengthened by female top executives' human capital and social capital, consistent with the hypotheses.Research limitations/implicationsThe present study gains consistent results with research conducted in the Western context, suggesting that the top management behavior of Chinese private enterprises is similar to that of their Western counterparts, possibly due to the fact that they are less influenced by direct governmental control and are more profit‐driven than state‐owned companies.Practical implicationsThe results of the study suggest that Chinese private companies can gain competitive advantages through identifying, attracting, and developing female managerial talents. And the female executives in the new era should be ones with systematic education and strong social connections. Both factors facilitate female executives to contribute better to their companies' performance.Originality/valueThe contribution of the present study is twofold. First, drawing on extant literature in the Western business context, the present study is the first to examine how female participation in top management influences firm performance in the context of the Chinese private sector, which contributes to the understanding of and offers insights to Chinese managerial practices. Second, the study enriches the extant literature by examining the moderating effects of female executives' human and social capitals.

Strategic management staffing decisions among German subsidiaries in Japan

This study discusses the composition of strategic management teams in foreign subsidiaries beyond decisions solely about the general manager, i.e. encompassing third-country nationals; locally hired “foreigners” as well as managers on short-term assignments. We extend the discussion about expatriates by developing hypotheses about those issues based on the resource-based view of the firm and the principal agent theory and find that both are important for understanding staffing decisions. This research analyses these issues by means of a data set on German subsidiaries in Japan and shows that recent changes in the global environment are providing multinationals greater latitude when staffing foreign-based subsidiaries, including choices that have not been given due weight in IHRM literature.

The Top Management Team, Reflexivity, Knowledge Sharing and New Product Performance: A Study of the Irish Software Industry

In the present study, we develop a model to predict new product performance incorporating the literature on top management team (TMT) composition, trustworthiness, knowledge sharing and task reflexivity in organizations. We hypothesize that diversity and trustworthiness in the TMT should influence knowledge sharing and reflexivity and reflexivity and knowledge sharing would be positively associated with new product performance. We test the model using data collected from 39 indigenous software firms in Ireland. Results indicate that age diversity was positively related to knowledge sharing ability while educational level, tenure and functional diversity of the TMT did not have any direct effect on reflexivity or knowledge sharing ability or motivation. However, educational level of TMT, tenure and age diversity had indirect effects on reflexivity and knowledge sharing through the intervening variable of TMT trustworthiness. Further, knowledge sharing and task reflexivity had direct effects on market new product performance. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Top management team composition and views of viable strategies

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to form propositions about the relationship between the cognitive composition of the top management team and its view of the viable strategy for a firm. Design/methodology/approach – The cognitive style of 58 members of ten top management teams were analyzed using the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the strategy types based on Miles and Snow typology were defined using the paragraph approach. Descriptive statistics were used in the analysis. Findings – Based on data from the ten top management teams in the spa industry, this study proposes that the cognitive composition of the top management team affects the strategies they prefer. Further, it is proposed that intuitive-thinking top management teams prefer either a prospector or an analyzer strategy. A defender or an analyzer strategy is preferred by sensing-thinking top management teams. Defining the composition of the top management team using the cognitive style is proposed to be a more promising way to explain the homogeneity or heterogeneity of the team than traditional measures such as age or education in this context. Practical implications – For the top management teams, the results of this study emphasize the importance of knowing the cognitive composition of the top management team and especially taking it into consideration during strategic decision-making. Originality/value – This study extends existing research by illuminating the relationships between the cognitive composition of the top management team and the strategy type and also confirms several results drawn from previous studies concerning manager-strategy relationships. This paper also attempts to inspire researchers to take cognitive composition into consideration when studying the influences the top management team has on a firm’s strategy.

Top management team composition: Asking institutional questions about who is ‘in’, when and why?

Top management team composition: Asking institutional questions about who is ‘in’, when and why?

Top management team composition and views of viable strategies

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to form propositions about the relationship between the cognitive composition of the top management team and its view of the viable strategy for a firm.Design/methodology/approachThe cognitive style of 58 members of ten top management teams were analyzed using the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the strategy types based on Miles and Snow typology were defined using the paragraph approach. Descriptive statistics were used in the analysis.FindingsBased on data from the ten top management teams in the spa industry, this study proposes that the cognitive composition of the top management team affects the strategies they prefer. Further, it is proposed that intuitive‐thinking top management teams prefer either a prospector or an analyzer strategy. A defender or an analyzer strategy is preferred by sensing‐thinking top management teams. Defining the composition of the top management team using the cognitive style is proposed to be a more promising way to explain the homogeneity or heterogeneity of the team than traditional measures such as age or education in this context.Practical implicationsFor the top management teams, the results of this study emphasize the importance of knowing the cognitive composition of the top management team and especially taking it into consideration during strategic decision‐making.Originality/valueThis study extends existing research by illuminating the relationships between the cognitive composition of the top management team and the strategy type and also confirms several results drawn from previous studies concerning manager‐strategy relationships. This paper also attempts to inspire researchers to take cognitive composition into consideration when studying the influences the top management team has on a firm's strategy.

Top Management Teams, Business Models, and Performance of Biotechnology Ventures: An Upper Echelon Perspective*

In this paper we introduce a new contingency variable that moderates the effect of top management team composition on organizational performance – the organization's business model. Arguing from an upper echelon perspective and drawing on data from 99 German biotechnology ventures, we show that founder‐based firm‐specific experience of management team members can have either a positive or a negative effect on performance, depending on whether the venture pursues a platform or a therapeutics business model, respectively. Our results also show that managers' experience collected in the pharmaceutical industry has a positive effect on performance, and that this effect is more positive for therapeutics than for platform ventures. We discuss the implications of these findings for the literature on upper echelons and entrepreneurial founding teams.

Managing the Implementation of Business Intelligence Systems

The implementation of a BI system is a complex undertaking requiring considerable resources. Yet there is a limited authoritative set of CSFs for management reference. This article represents a first step of filling in the research gap. The authors utilized the Delphi method to conduct three rounds of studies with 15 BI system experts in the domain of engineering asset management organizations. The study develops a CSFs framework that consists of seven factors and associated contextual elements crucial for BI systems implementation. The CSFs are committed management support and sponsorship, business user-oriented change management, clear business vision and well-established case, business-driven methodology and project management, business-centric championship and balanced project team composition, strategic and extensible technical framework, and sustainable data quality and governance framework. This CSFs framework allows BI stakeholders to holistically understand the critical factors that influence implementation success of BI systems.

The Impact of Goal Alignment on Board Existence and Top Management Team Composition: Evidence from Family‐Influenced Businesses*

Using a sample of 714 private family influenced businesses in Germany, we investigate the relationship of goal alignment between owners and managers and the existence of a board of directors. Agency theory and stewardship theory serve as theoretical bases for our study. We find that firms with relatively high levels of goal alignment are less likely to have a board of directors. Our results provide support for the substitution hypothesis of formal by social control mechanisms. Furthermore, the findings show that firms without a board and with relatively low levels of goal alignment have less family members in the top management team. This circumstance might in turn be a trigger for owners to install a board.

School principals\' perceptions of team management: a multiple case-study of secondary schools

The notion of school management through teams (team management), though not a new phenomenon in South Africa, was formalized after the advent of democracy in 1994 and the subsequent reorganization of the education system. The concept was subsequently fleshed out in official documentation where the composition and roles of school management teams (SMTs) were elaborated upon. The notion of team management is rooted in theories that stress participation, notably site-based (school-based) management, teamwork, and distributed leadership. We report on a study in which the perceptions of secondary school principals, in Grahamstown, South Africa, of team management were explored. The study was interpretive in orientation, and utilized qualitative data gathering techniques in all (ten) of the state-aided secondary schools in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape province. We found that, while team management was generally welcomed and even celebrated by principals, there were fundamental tensions surrounding principals' understanding of their leadership roles in a team context. We considers the implications of these findings for leadership development in the context of team management.

Founding the Future: Path Dependence in the Evolution of Top Management Teams from Founding to IPO

We contrast life-cycle and path-dependent views of entrepreneurial firms by examining the evolution of top management teams. We show how initial conditions constrain subsequent outcomes by demonstrating that the founding team's prior functional experiences and initial organizational functional structures predict subsequent top manager backgrounds and later functional structures. We find that narrowly experienced teams have trouble adding functional expertise not already embodied in the team. We also find that firms beginning with a limited range of functional positions are less likely to develop complete functional structures. Importantly, we do not find functional structure and functional experience to be interchangeable. We find that firms beginning with more complete functional structures are likely to go public faster, and firms beginning with broadly experienced team members obtain venture capital more quickly regardless of the experience and structural composition of the top management team in place at the time of these outcomes. Further, broadly experienced founding teams that build an early team with a full complement of functional positions achieve important milestones faster than firms that start with neither experience nor structure. This suggests that creating positions as “placeholders” in new ventures, where positions are created and filled with the intent of bringing individuals with more relevant experience onboard later, is not obviously a path by which to succeed. By examining the origins of top management team experience and functional structures, we illustrate the lasting imprint of founders on top management team composition and firm outcomes.

Researching the transition from middle leadership to senior leadership in secondary schools: some emerging themes

There is a growing trend for the composition of senior management teams to include fewer deputy headteachers (DHs) and more assistant headteachers (ADHs) in secondary schools in England and Wales. Part of the reason for this trend may be to offer more structured career opportunities for younger, able middle leaders who can then be rewarded financially by promoting them onto the leadership pay spine. It is not uncommon for ADHs to be promoted from within the ranks of existing middle leaders in the school. The transition from a middle leadership role (for example, subject leader or key stage subject coordinator) to a senior leadership role can be a challenging as well as an invigorating experience. Relatively little is known about this transition mainly, one suspects, because most of the research effort has concentrated on investigating the effectiveness of the training and preparation for newly appointed headteachers in what is recognised as a very demanding role. By contrast, little or no work has been done on the transition between middle and senior leadership roles. This research tries to address this evident lack of knowledge. Becoming a senior leader requires the individual concerned to gain a whole-school perspective when determining school policy and tackling complex problems. Turner (2005) noted that:

Critical success factors for successful implementation of enterprise resource planning systems in manufacturing organisations

This study examines the impact of the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) on the successful implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems in Malaysian manufacturing organisations. The ERP system is an integrated package of business software that enables companies to manage their resources efficiently (Nah, Zuckweiler and Lau, 2003). The effect of organisational resistance on the aforementioned relationship was also studied, along with user satisfaction and pre-determined goals to evaluate the degree of success of ERP system implementation. Top management involvement, business plans, vision, vendor support, change readiness, teamwork, team composition and communication were found to be critical factors to ensure a smooth introduction for successful ERP implementation. In addition, organisational resistance was found to moderate the relationship between CSFs and user satisfaction.

People are strange when you're a stranger: senior executives select similar successors

Despite Sweden being considered one of the most equality-minded countries, the uppermost organizational levels are so male dominated that mandatory board of director gender quotas are considered. Homogeneity may only be decreased with difficulty, as it arises through basic social mechanisms such as homosocial reproduction, that is, people prefer and, therefore, recruit people who are similar to themselves. Present structure is perpetuated. Previous research suggests that such reproduction occurs on an organizational, top management and/or interpersonal level. In this paper, simultaneous analyses of these three levels regarding gender, nationality, age and tenure show that homogeneity arises between superior and subordinate. As for top management team composition, there is in general one woman per company, whereas non-Swedes are twice the number of women, cluster together and have line responsibility. Owing to need for critical mass, present composition and position responsibility, we may, therefore, expect gender homogeneity and some nationality heterogeneity to remain.

Direct and interaction effects of top management team and board compositions on R&D investment strategy

AbstractThis paper examines why firms differ in levels of R&D investment intensity by developing and testing a theory of direct and interaction effects of top management team and board outsider composition on R&D intensity. The theory is tested in a longitudinal sample of technology‐intensive firms that completed an initial public offering. The results indicate that both top management team composition and board composition have direct and additive effects on R&D investment intensity. Also, monitoring by outsider directors does not constitute a universally effective governance mechanism with regard to a firm's R&D investment strategy. Firms opt for lower levels of R&D investment intensity when their outsider‐rich board interacts with a team of managers who have high levels of (1) firm tenure, (2) shared team‐specific experience, or (3) functional heterogeneity. When a firm's competitiveness relies on sustained R&D investments, it is important to note these interaction effects and make adjustments to promote a healthy dialogue between managers and the board. Adjustments could be made to the management team composition (e.g., initiating management turnover to reduce firm tenure) or to the bundle of governance mechanisms (e.g., partially substituting board monitoring with other mechanisms). Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A comparative study of new venture top management team composition, dynamics and performance between university-based and independent start-ups

The current study tests for differences in top management team (TMT) composition (education, functional expertise, industry experience, and skill), dynamics (shared strategic cognition, potency, cohesion, and conflict) and performance (net cash flow and revenue growth) between a sample of 102 high-technology university-based start-ups and an otherwise equivalently matched sample of 154 independent high-technology new ventures. The results find university-based start-ups to be comprised of more homogenous TMTs with less developed dynamics than their independent counterparts. Further, university-based start-ups are found to be significantly lower performing in terms of net cash flow and revenue growth than independent new ventures.

Newness and novelty: Relating top management team composition to new venture performance

We distinguish novelty from newness and argue that the tasks of new venture top management teams vary with new venture novelty. We argue that as novelty increases, the information processing requirements on the TMT change as well. Because a team's demographic characteristics influence its information processing abilities, venture performance should reflect, at least partially, the fit between the characteristics of the TMT and the level of venture novelty. Evidence from a large sample of ventures supports this view.

Private Equity Fund Management Team Composition and Fund Performance

This paper documents variation in the human capital of private equity fund managers using a dataset of the educational and work histories of private equity fund managers. It then examines whether the human capital composition of private equity fund management teams can explain fund performance. A number of novel empirical patterns are uncovered. Both buyout and venture funds with more experienced management teams perform better. Venture capital funds perform better when a greater fraction of their managers have engineering degrees and when managers sit on the boards of a greater number of portfolio companies in the fund. First time venture capital funds perform better when a greater fraction of managers have entrepreneurial backgrounds, but this is not true for follow-on venture capital funds. Fund management team changes in venture funds are associated with better fund performance, while changes in buyout fund management teams are associated with worse performance. The findings suggest value-added activities of fund managers are much more important for the success of venture capital funds than for buyout funds.

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

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.