Composition of the Top Management Team and Firm International Diversification

This study investigates the impact of various top management team characteristics on firm international diversification. Relying on data from 126 firms in the electronics industry, we find that certain top management team characteristics are related to international expansion. Specifically, results indicate that lower average age, higher average tenure, higher average elite education, higher average international experience, and higher tenure heterogeneity are associated with firm international diversification. The study reinforces the importance of top management team composition in internationalization decisions and suggests further research in this context.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Theory and research in strategic management: Swings of a pendulum

The development of the field of strategic management within the last two decades has been dramatic. While its roots have been in a more applied area, often referred to as business policy, the current field of strategic management is strongly theory based, with substantial empirical research, and is eclectic in nature. This review of the development of the field and its current position examines the field’s early development and the primary theoretical and methodological bases through its history. Early developments include Chandler’s (1962) Strategy and Structure and Ansoff’s (1965) Corporate Strategy. These early works took on a contingency perspective (fit between strategy and structure) and a resource-based framework emphasizing internal strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps, one of the more significant contributions to the development of strategic management came from industrial organization (IO) economics, specifically the work of Michael Porter. The structure-conduct-performance framework and the notion of strategic groups, as well as providing a foundation for research on competitive dynamics, are flourishing currently. The IO paradigm also brought econometric tools to the research on strategic management. Building on the IO economics framework, the organizational economics perspective contributed transaction costs economics and agency theory to strategic management. More recent theoretical contributions focus on the resource-based view of the firm. While it has its roots in Edith Penrose’s work in the late 1950s, the resource-based view was largely introduced to the field of strategic management in the 1980s and became a dominant framework in the 1990s. Based on the resource-based view or developing concurrently were research on strategic leadership, strategic decision theory (process research) and knowledge-based view of the firm. The research methodologies are becoming increasingly sophisticated and now frequently combine both quantitative and qualitative approaches and unique and new statistical tools. Finally, this review examines the future directions, both in terms of theory and methodologies, as the study of strategic management evolves.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

All aspirations are not created equal: The differential effects of historical and social aspirations on acquisition behavior

Research on performance aspirations has tended to assume that historical and social aspirations work in parallel and influence strategic behavior in a similar manner. We posit that these two distinct modes of performance comparison in fact lead to dissimilar firm behavior. We also explore how variability in prior acquisition performance influences the relationship between aspiration levels and subsequent strategic behavior. We examine our questions in the context of mergers and acquisitions within the U.S. commercial banking industry from 1988 to 2005. Consistent with our opening prediction, we find that firms' acquisition behavior varies significantly depending on whether historical or social comparisons are used. We also find that high variability in the previous acquisition performance of a firm intensifies the relationship between acquisition performance relative to aspirations and the probability of the firm making acquisitions below historical and social aspirations, but attenuates the relationship above such aspirations

The family factor: How collaborative dialogue between owner managers and the owner family shapes firm-level outcomes

The influence of the owner family on managerial decision-making in family firms is undisputed. However, we know relatively little about how this influence is exerted. Based on upper echelon theory, and in the context of innovation management, we explore the owner family’s influence via collaborative dialogue. Quantitative analyses based on 116 family firms, substantiated by 12 qualitative interviews within seven family firms, show that an owner family’s collaborative dialogue minimizes the influence of an owner manager’s attitude toward risk on TMT innovativeness. On the other hand, the collaborative dialogue strengthens the impact TMT innovativeness has on firm-level innovative capacity

Board Network Characteristics and Firm Performance in Korea

This paper examines the effects of board of directors' network characteristics on firm performance using a sample of 199 large, publicly traded Korean companies from 1990 through 1999. Two board network characteristics are discussed, namely: board network density and board external social capital. Board network density is defined as the extensiveness or the cohesiveness of contact among the members of board of directors, and board external social capital refers to the degree to which board members have outside contacts in the external environment. The test results suggest that a moderate level of board network density enhances firm value, while too cohesive a board network destroys it. It is also found that board members' elite school networks were positively associated with firm performance. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2005.