Top Management Team Diversity and Strategic Innovation Orientation: The Relationship and Consequences for Innovativeness and Performance

Competing favorably in the market requires finding a perfect fit between a firm’s resources and the business environment. Strategy is the stewardship by top management that aligns organizational resources and capabilities to the environment with the ultimate goal of achieving superior and sustainable performance. The current study was designed to determine the influence of competitive environment on the relationship between top management team characteristics and strategy implementation. The study adopted the descriptive cross-sectional survey design. Data was obtained by administering structured questionnaire mailed to top managers in tea factory companies in Kenya. The moderation test was carried out using the product term of the standardized scores for top management team characteristics and competitive environment respectively. Data was processed through regression analysis. While we demonstrate that top management team characteristics had significant influence on strategy implementation, the results of moderation tests were not statistically significant. Consequently, our hypothesized moderating influence of competitive environment on the relationship between top management team characteristics and strategy implementation was not supported. Our findings raise theoretical questions on whether competitive environment is more relevant during strategy formulation process or execution stage. We conclude that companies implementing strategy in stable competitive environment have predictable implementation of planned strategy. We further conclude that external insulation from competition by umbrella marketing agency reduces the influence of factors within the competitive environment on the relationship between top management team characteristics and strategy implementation. However, the temporary insulation of the firm from competition exposes it to competitive disadvantage in the event that the marketing agency is destabilized by forces both from within and external to it.

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Do Interaction and Education Moderate Top Management Team Age Heterogeneity and Corporate Social Responsibility?

Social Behavior and Personality An International Journal ◽

10.2224/sbp.7780 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 46 (12) ◽

pp. 2063-2079 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Yawei Liu ◽

M. Awais Gulzar ◽

Zhaoguo Zhang ◽

Qingxiang Yang

Keyword(s):

Corporate Social Responsibility ◽

Social Responsibility ◽

Top Management Team ◽

Management Team ◽

Top Management ◽

Listed Firms ◽

Upper Echelons Theory ◽

Csr Strategy ◽

Corporate Social ◽

The Relationship

Using Chinese listed firms' data from 2008 to 2012, we explored, on the basis of upper echelons theory, whether and how top management team (TMT) age heterogeneity affects corporate social responsibility (CSR) and if TMT interaction and TMT education moderate this relationship. Results revealed an inverted U-shaped relationship between TMT age heterogeneity and CSR, in which TMT interaction played a moderating role; however, TMT education did not moderate the relationship. These results are helpful and significant for the understanding of CSR strategy, and for the improvement of human resource management.

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