New CEOs and their collaborators: Divergence and convergence between the strategic leadership constellation and the top management team

CITATION

Ma, S., & Seidl, D. (2018). New CEOs and their collaborators: Divergence and convergence between the strategic leadership constellation and the top management team. Strategic Management Journal, 39(3), 606–638. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.2721

For library access / research help in a similar topic: anyangoceline19@gmail.com


ABSTRACT
Research Summary: An important challenge that new
CEOs face is establishing a group of immediate collaborators,
which we call the “strategic leadership constellation.”
Drawing on a comparative case study, we show
that due to constraints on the CEO to change the top
management team (TMT), the composition of the strategic
leadership constellation initially tends to differ from
that of the TMT: in some cases, it consists of a subgroup
of the TMT; in others, it also comprises individuals outside
the TMT such as staff members or lower-level managers.
We show that the discrepancies between the
strategic leadership constellation and the TMT lead to
tensions that trigger a process of convergence between
these two bodies, particularly as the constraints on TMT
change decrease and the CEO’s needs evolve.
Managerial Summary: A major challenge that new
CEOs face is establishing a group of close collaborators,
which we call the “strategic leadership constellation.”
Our study shows that due to different constraints on
changing the executive team, the composition of the strategic
leadership constellation initially tends to differ from
that of the executive team: in some cases, it consists of a
subgroup of the executive team; in others, it also comprises
individuals outside the executive team, such as
staff members or lower-level managers. We show that the
discrepancies between the strategic leadership constellation
and the executive team lead to tensions that trigger a
process of convergence between these two bodies, particularly
as the constraints on changing the executive team
decrease and the CEO’s needs evolve.


REFERENCES
Arendt, L. A., Priem, R. L., & Ndofor, H. A. (2005). A CEO-adviser model of strategic decision making. Journal of Management,
31(5), 680–699.

Barron, J. M., Chulkov, D. V., & Waddell, G. R. (2011). Top management team turnover, CEO succession type, and strategic change.
Journal of Business Research, 64(8), 904–910.

Beckman, C. M., & Burton, M. D. (2011). Bringing organizational demography back in: Time, change, and structure in top management
team research. In M. A. Carpenter (Ed.), The handbook of research on top management teams. Cheltenham, England:
Edward Elgar Publishing.

Bigley, G. A., & Wiersema, M. (2002). New CEOs and corporate strategic refocusing: How experience as heir apparent influences
the use of power. Administrative Science Quarterly, 47(4), 707–727.

Cao, Q., Maruping, L. M., & Takeuchi, R. (2006). Disentangling the effects of CEO turnover and succession on organizational capabilities:
A social network perspective. Organization Science, 17(5), 563–576.

Carmeli, A., Schaubroeck, J., & Tishler, A. (2011). How CEO empowering leadership shapes top management team processes: Implications
for firm performance. Leadership Quarterly, 22(2), 399–411.

Carpenter, M. A., Geletkanycz, M. A., & Sanders, W. G. (2004). Upper echelons research revisited: Antecedents, elements, and consequences
of top management team composition. Journal of Management, 30(6), 749–778.

de Jong, A., Song, M., & Song, L. Z. (2013). How lead founder personality affects new venture performance: The mediating role of
team conflict. Journal of Management, 39(7), 1825–1854.

Denis, J. L., Lamothe, L., & Langley, A. (2001). The dynamics of collective leadership and strategic change in pluralistic organizations.
Academy of Management Journal, 44(4), 809–837.

Denis, J. L., Langley, A., & Pineault, M. (2000). Becoming a leader in a complex organization. Journal of Management Studies,
37(8), 1063–1099.

Denis, J. L., Langley, A., & Sergi, V. (2012). Leadership in the plural. Academy of Management Annals, 6, 211–283.

Edmondson, A. C., Roberto, M. A., & Watkins, M. D. (2003). A dynamic model of top management team effectiveness: Managing
unstructured task streams. Leadership Quarterly, 14(3), 297–325.

Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989a). Building theories from case-study research. Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 532–550.

Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989b). Making fast strategic decisions in high-velocity environments. Academy of Management Journal, 32(3),
543–576.

Eisenhardt, K. M., & Graebner, M. E. (2007). Theory building from cases: Opportunities and challenges. Academy of Management
Journal, 50(1), 25–32.

Finkelstein, S. (1992). Power in top management teams: Dimensions, measurement, and validation. Academy of Management Journal,
35(3), 505–538.

Finkelstein, S., Hambrick, D. C., & Cannella, A. A. (2009). Strategic leadership: Theory and research on executives, top management
teams, and boards. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Friedman, S. D., & Saul, K. (1991). A leader's wake: Organization member reactions to CEO succession. Journal of Management,
17(3), 619–642.

Gioia, D. A., Price, K. N., Hamilton, A. L., & Thomas, J. B. (2010). Forging an identity: An insider-outsider study of processes
involved in the formation of organizational identity. Administrative Science Quarterly, 55(1), 1–46.

Hambrick, D. C. (1995). Fragmentation and the other problems CEOs have with their top management teams. California Management
Review, 37(3), 110–127.

Hambrick, D. C. (2007). Upper echelons theory: An update. Academy of Management Review, 32(2), 334–343.

Hambrick, D. C., & Cannella, A. A. (2004). CEOs who have COOs: Contingency analysis of an unexplored structural form. Strategic
Management Journal, 25(10), 959–979.

Hambrick, D. C., Humphrey, S. E., & Gupta, A. (2015). Structural interdependence within top management teams: A key moderator
of upper echelons predictions. Strategic Management Journal, 36(3), 449–461.

Hambrick, D. C., & Mason, P. A. (1984). Upper echelons: The organization as a reflection of its top managers. Academy of Management
Review, 9(2), 193–206.

Hayes, R. M., Oyer, P., & Schaefer, S. (2006). Coworker complementarity and the stability of top-management teams. Journal of
Law Economics and Organization, 22(1), 184–212.

Helmich, D. L., & Brown, W. B. (1972). Successor type and organizational change in corporate enterprise. Administrative Science
Quarterly, 17(3), 371–381.

Hodgson, R. C., Levinson, D. J., & Zaleznik, A. (1965). The executive role constellation. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School
Press.

Huber, G. P. (1985). Temporal stability and response-order biases in participant descriptions of organizational decisions. Academy of
Management Journal, 28(4), 943–950.

Hutzschenreuter, T., Kleindienst, I., & Greger, C. (2012). How new leaders affect strategic change following a succession event: A
critical review of the literature. Leadership Quarterly, 23(5), 729–755.

Jones, C. D., & Cannella, A. A. (2011). Alternate configurations in strategic decision making. In M. A. Carpenter (Ed.), The handbook
of research on top management teams. Cheltenham, England: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Karaevli, A. (2007). Performance consequences of new CEO ‘outsiderness’: Moderating effects of pre- and post-succession contexts.
Strategic Management Journal, 28(7), 681–706.

Karaevli, A., & Zajac, E. J. (2013). When do outsider CEOs generate strategic change? The enabling role of corporate stability. Journal
of Management Studies, 50(7), 1267–1294.

Keck, S. L., & Tushman, M. L. (1993). Environmental and organizational context and executive team structure. Academy of Management
Journal, 36(6), 1314–1344.

Kelly, J. N. (1980). Management transitions for newly appointed CEOs. Sloan Management Review, 22(1), 37–45.

Kesner, I. F., & Dalton, D. R. (1994). Top management turnover and CEO succession: An investigation of the effects of turnover on
performance. Journal of Management Studies, 31(5), 701–713.

Kor, Y. Y., & Mesko, A. (2013). Dynamic managerial capabilities: Configuration and orchestration of top executives' capabilities and
the firm’s dominant logic. Strategic Management Journal, 34(2), 233–244.

Langley, A. (1999). Strategies for theorizing from process data. Academy of Management Review, 24(4), 691–710.

Leonard-Barton, D. (1990). A dual methodology for case studies: Synergistic use of a longitudinal single site with replicated multiple
sites. Organization Science, 1(3), 248–266.

Li, J. T., & Hambrick, D. C. (2005). Factional groups: A new vantage on demographic faultlines, conflict, and disintegration in work
teams. Academy of Management Journal, 48(5), 794–813.

Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E. G. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. London, England: SAGE.

Ling, Y., Simsek, Z., Lubatkin, M. H., & Veiga, J. F. (2008). Transformational leadership’s role in promoting corporate entrepreneurship:
Examining the CEO-TMT interface. Academy of Management Journal, 51(3), 557–576.

Ma, S., Seidl, D., & Guérard, S. (2015). The new CEO and the post-succession process: An integration of past research and future
directions. International Journal of Management Reviews, 17(4), 460–482.

McDonald, M. L., Khanna, P., & Westphal, J. D. (2008). Getting them to think outside the circle: Corporate governance, CEOs’
external advice networks, and firm performance. Academy of Management Journal, 51(3), 453–475.

McDonald, M. L., & Westphal, J. D. (2003). Getting by with the advice of their friends: CEOs’ advice networks and firms’ strategic
responses to poor performance. Administrative Science Quarterly, 48(1), 1–32.

Menz, M. (2012). Functional top management team members: A review, synthesis, and research agenda. Journal of Management,
38(1), 45–80.

Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis - an expanded sourcebook (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA:
SAGE.

Miller, C. C., Cardinal, L. B., & Glick, W. H. (1997). Retrospective reports in organizational research: A reexamination of recent evidence.
Academy of Management Journal, 40(1), 189–204.

Mooney, A. C., & Amason, A. C. (2011). In search of the CEO’s inner circle and how it is formed. In M. A. Carpenter (Ed.), The
handbook of research on top management teams. Cheltenham, England: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Nakauchi, M., & Wiersema, M. F. (2015). Executive succession and strategic change in Japan. Strategic Management Journal, 36(2),
298–306.

Nielsen, S. (2010). Top management team diversity: A review of theories and methodologies. International Journal of Management
Reviews, 12(3), 301–316.

Ou, A. Y., Tsui, A. S., Kinicki, A. J., Waldman, D. A., Xiao, Z. X., & Song, L. J. (2014). Humble chief executive officers’ connections
to top management team integration and middle managers’ responses. Administrative Science Quarterly, 59(1), 34–72.

Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research & evaluation methods (3rd ed.). Thousands Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Pearce, J. A. (1995). A structural analysis of dominant coalitions in small banks. Journal of Management, 21(6), 1075–1095.

Peterson, R. S., Smith, D. B., Martorana, P. V., & Owens, P. D. (2003). The impact of chief executive officer personality on top management
team dynamics: One mechanism by which leadership affects organizational performance. Journal of Applied Psychology,
88(5), 795–808.

Pettigrew, A. M. (1992). On studying managerial elites. Strategic Management Journal, 13, 163–182.
Pitcher, P., & Smith, A. D. (2001). Top management team heterogeneity: Personality, power, and proxies. Organization Science,
12(1), 1–18.

Quigley, T. J., & Hambrick, D. C. (2012). When the former CEO stays on as board chair: Effects on successor discretion, strategic
change, and performance. Strategic Management Journal, 33(7), 834–859.

Roberto, M. A. (2003). The stable core and dynamic periphery in top management teams. Management Decision, 41(2), 120–131.

Sakano, T., & Lewin, A. Y. (1999). Impact of CEO succession in Japanese companies: A coevolutionary perspective. Organization
Science, 10(5), 654–671.

Shen, W., & Cannella, A. A. (2002). Revisiting the performance consequences of CEO succession: The impacts of successor type,
postsuccession senior executive turnover, and departing CEO tenure. Academy of Management Journal, 45(4), 717–733.

Simsek, Z., Veiga, J. F., Lubatkin, M. H., & Dino, R. N. (2005). Modeling the multilevel determinants of top management team
behavioral integration. Academy of Management Journal, 48(1), 69–84.

Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of qualitative research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Tushman, M. L., & Rosenkopf, L. (1996). Executive succession, strategic reorientation and performance growth: A longitudinal study
in the US cement industry. Management Science, 42(7), 939–953.

Van de ven, A. H. (1992). Suggestions for studying strategy process: A research note. Strategic Management Journal, 13, 169–188.

Yin, R. K. (1994). Case study research: Design and methods (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Zhang, Y., & Rajagopalan, N. (2010). Once an outsider, always an outsider? CEO origin, strategic change, and firm performance.
Strategic Management Journal, 31(3), 334–346.