The authors acknowledge support from Columbia University's Management Institute. Warren Boeker, Sara Keck, John Michel, Peter Murmann, Michael Tushman, and Ruth Wageman made helpful suggestions on earlier drafts. We are grateful for access to the airline data base jointly assembled by the third author, Martin J. Gannon, Curtis M. Grimm, and Ken G. Smith. This paper explores the executive origins of firms' competitive moves by focusing on top management team characteristics, specifically on team heterogeneity, rather than on the more often studied environmental and organizational determinants of such behaviors. Arguing that competitive actions and responses represent different decision situations, we develop propositions about how heterogeneity may enhance some competitive behaviors but impair others. With a large sample of actions and responses of 32 U.S. airlines over eight years, we find results that largely conform to our propositions. The top management teams that were diverse, in terms of functional backgrounds, education, and company tenure, exhibited a relatively great propensity for action, and both their actions and responses were of substantial magnitude. Heterogeneous teams, by contrast, were slower in their actions and responses and less likely than homogeneous teams to respond to competitors' initiatives. Thus, although team heterogeneity is a double-edged sword, its overall net effect on airline performance, in terms of changes in market share and profits, was positive.*

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2393871.pdf

The Influence of Top Management Team Heterogeneity on Firms' Competitive Moves

The resource-based view (RBV) is one of the most widely accepted theories of strategic management. However, to date no systematic assessment of the RBV's level of empirical support has been conducted. In response, a sample of RBV-grounded empirical articles was analyzed from which it was found that the RBV has received only modest support overall and that this support varies considerably with the independent variable and theoretical approach employed. It is therefore suggested that scholars avoid the tendency to test models reflecting early incarnations of the RBV and instead test those that incorporate its more contemporary theoretical extensions. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Empirical research on the resource-based view of the firm: an assessment and suggestions for future research

The Resource-Based View (RBV) of competitive advantage provides a theoretical framework from the field of strategic management for assessing the competitive advantages of family firms. The RBV isolates idiosyncratic resources that are complex, intangible, and dynamic within a particular firm. The bundle of resources that are distinctive to a firm as a result of family involvement are identified as the “familiness” of the firm. This approach provides a research and practice method for assessing the specific behavioral and social phenomena within a firm that provide an advantage. Using a familiness model for assessing competitive advantage overcomes many of the problems associated with the generic claim that family companies have an advantage over nonfamily companies. It also provides a unified systems perspective of family firm performance.

A Resource-Based Framework for Assessing the Strategic Advantages of Family Firms

Over the past fifteen years, a number of studies have examined the determinants of firm R&D spending. These studies, however, almost invariably focus on the role of firm or external ownership characteristics in predicting R&D spending while overlooking the attributes of the top managers involved in allocating corporate resources. In this study, we change that focus by empirically examining how R&D spending as compared to industry competitors varies at firms based on the characteristics of their CEOs. Using a sample of publicly traded firms, we find that CEO characteristics explain a significant proportion of the sample variance in firm R&D spending even when corporate strategy, ownership structure, and other firm-level attributes are controlled. In terms of individual CEO characteristics, we find that R&D spending is greater at firms where CEOs are younger, have greater wealth invested in firm stock and signifacant career experience in marketing and/or engineering/R&D. In contrast to existing theory, we find that the amount of a CEO's formal education had no significant association with R&D spending once a CEO has attained a college degree. However, significant R&D spending increases are found at firms where CEOs have advanced science-related degrees. From subgroup analyses, we further find that CEO effects on relative R&D spending increase with longer CEO tenure implying that CEOs, over time, may mold R&D spending to suit their own preferences. From these results, we make implications for both research on determinants of R&D spending and managerial practice.

CEO Characteristics and Firm R&D Spending

Organizational renewal requires that a firm's top managers make timely adjustments in their mental models following significant changes in the environment. Our initial propositions about the difference between renewal and decline focused on whether similar organizations in similar contexts differ in their ability to recognize significant changes in their environments. Analysis of longitudinal data from a matched pair of U.S. railroads suggested, however, that renewal hinges not so much on noticing new conditions, but on being able to link environmental change to corporate strategy and to modify that linkage over time. In the successful company we studied organizational renewal is a continuous process of first and second order changes in cognitive maps.

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Cognitive change, strategic action, and organizational renewal

This paper develops a theoretical model that explains the impact of the fit between top executive characteristics and strategic orientation on organizational performance. Using the Miles and Snow typology as an integrative framework, the central propositions of the model were evaluated. The results of the empirical examination provided significant support for the administrative dimension, an aspect of the typology that has been largely overlooked thus far. Further, it was found that firms achieving a greater degree of alignment between their strategy and the profiles of top managers, generally realized superior performance outcomes.

The performance impact of strategy - manager coalignment: an empirical examination

This paper integrates prior research on strategic leadership by building on the concept of alignment to explain the performance impact of top managers. Using the Miles and Snow (1978) typology as a theoretical framework, several hypotheses are tested on a sample drawn from three distinct industries. The results show that organizations that are able to achieve an alignment between managerial characteristics and strategic direction perform better than firms where such an alignment is absent. Further, it was found that the strategy-manager match explains a greater proportion of variance in performance than industry membership, organizational age and firm size. Taken together, these findings provide persuasive evidence about the impact that an organization's leaders exert in driving performance outcomes and demonstrates the validity of the administrative dimension of the Miles and Snow typology.

Matching Managers to Strategy: Further Tests of the Miles and Snow Typology

This study explores the influence of governmental regulation on organizational strategies and performance outcomes. Drawing on literature in strategic management, we provide a longitudinal empirical analysis of viable strategies in the U.S. domestic airline industry during a 6-year period (1965-70) when it was regulated by the Civil Aeronautics Board. Results indicate that air carriers were indeed able to articulate coherent strategic postures despite regulatory constraints, and were thus able to influence profitability.

Organizational performance in a regulated environment: The role of strategic orientation

This paper explores a series of relationships between top managers, strategic direction and financial perfor Mance. Building on previous studies, it was hypothesised that: (a) firms pursuing different strategies would be led by managers with different profiles; and, (b) firms which aligned the profiles of their top managers with the requirements of their strategies would outperfor M those that did not achieve such alignment. Further the importance of the strategy-manager alignment under various environmental and organisational constraints was also investigated. The results of the empirical examination of a sample of U.S. companies from three industries suggest that matching managers to strategy is a significant component of superior perfor Mance.

Matching Managers to Strategy: An Investigation of Perfor Mance Implications and Boundary Conditions

This paper develops a contingency model that explores the impact of the fit between top executive characteristics and strategic orientation on organizational performance. Using the Miles & Snow (19...

Anisya S. Thomas

Papers

The performance impact of strategy - manager coalignment: an empirical examination

Matching Managers to Strategy: Further Tests of the Miles and Snow Typology

Organizational performance in a regulated environment: The role of strategic orientation

Matching Managers to Strategy: An Investigation of Perfor Mance Implications and Boundary Conditions

Executive Characteristics, Strategy and Performance: A Contingency Model.