高层管理团队内部社会资本、团队冲突和决策效果的关系——研究综述与理论分析框架

反映在结构因素、关系因素和认知因素三个维度上的高管团队内部社会资本为决策信息的交换和共享提供了机会、意愿和能力,有利于团队内部形成建设性的冲突模式,促进决策效果的提高.本文以团队冲突为中介变量,建立了高管团队内部社会资本与决策效果的关系的理论框架,提出了研究命题,并对企业高管团队内部社会资本的培育提出建议.     

Top management team constellations and their implications for strategic decision making

Two major themes in the upper echelon decision making literature are the efficacy of the CEO and the composition of the top management team (TMT). Little research has examined their intersection. This study addresses the call to reveal the social processes within TMTs, by focusing on CEO-TMT member interaction in decision making. Drawing on video ethnographic data of two TMTs, we explore the patterns of interactions between CEOs and TMT members in their strategic decision making meetings. Through an analysis of 20 issue discussions, we identify five “constellations”, a team level construct capturing the core relational dynamics that are created through mutual CEO-TMT member influence during a team's discussion of a strategic issue. We explain how these constellations unfold and their implications for the processes and outcomes of TMT strategic decision making. We then elaborate how our findings contribute to the TMT and upper echelon literatures, as well as our understanding of team politics.     

The influence of top management corporate networks on CEO succession

We analyze empirically how supervisory board members with multiple directorships affect the decision to hire an inside or outside CEO successor. While a growing number of both theoretical and empirical studies analyze the influence of corporate performance and size or the ownership structure on this decision, the role of multiple board memberships within the CEO recruitment process has been widely neglected so far. The present study is based on panel data of the largest German companies covering the period from 1996 to 2008. Applying competing risk estimations we find a weak and positive association between the number of external directorships of the supervisory board members and internal CEO replacements. Distinguishing between different groups of external board positions, we find that external executives on the supervisory board increase the likelihood of external CEO replacements. In line with empirical findings for the US we argue that external executives improve the assessment of potential CEO successors leading to more outside CEO replacements. In contrast, we find evidence that external supervisory board mandates of the supervisory board members cause more internal CEO replacements. This finding indicates a substitution of external expertise of the executives by multiple supervisory board mandates but could also reflect a reduction of the monitoring intensity of the supervisory board.     

Top Management Team Members’ Decision Influence and Cooperative Behaviour: An Empirical Study in the Information Technology Industry

Organizational leadership is generally distributed between the chief executive officer (CEO) and the top management team (TMT) members. Building on this observation, we present an empirical investigation of the cues for CEOs to delegate decision‐making influence to particular TMT members. In the literature, explanations both based on expertise and driven by similarity are described. In this study, we reconcile both explanations by examining the moderating role of the TMT's level of ‘cooperative behaviour’ (collaboration and information exchange). We analyse when and in what circumstances TMT members’ expertise and similarity to the CEO regarding his/her functional background and/or locus‐of‐control predict their decision‐making influence. We postulate that TMT cooperative behaviour will advance the effect of expertise on TMT members’ decision influence but impede the effect of similarity to the CEO. Our hypotheses are tested on a data set of 135 TMT members from 32 Dutch and Belgian information technology firms. Overall, we find that our proposed research model is confirmed for technology‐oriented decisions. Furthermore, we draw exploratory conclusions about the effect of TMT cooperative behaviour on the systematic distribution of decision influence in TMTs.     

高管团队内部动态特征实证研究

通过对中国企业高层管理团队内部动态特征(以沟通、冲突与决策质量作为3个关键变量)的实证研究,发现高层管理团队沟通规范有利于决策质量的提高,而高层管理团队内情绪冲突的增多会降低决策的质量.此外,高层管理团队沟通规范也促进团队内认知冲突的增加.研究结论指出了高层管理团队内部动态特征之间的联系,同时也为业界提高高层管理团队决策质量,进而增进团队绩效提供了方向.     

新创企业高管团队的团队过程与战略决策绩效 ——认知的调节作用

新创企业的成败很大程度上取决于战略决策绩效,具有决策权力的高管团队在创业情境下的认知和行为过程对战略决策绩效具有重要影响。本文结合创业研究和高管团队研究的现有成果,以122家新创企业为研究对象,从内部团队过程和外部团队过程两个维度考察高管团队的团队过程对战略决策绩效的影响,并从认知的视角分析新创企业高管团队认知需要和认知能力对团队过程与决策绩效关系的调节作用。研究结果表明,新创企业高管团队的内部团队过程和外部团队过程与决策的质量和满意度均有显著的正相关关系,且认知需要和认知能力对这种关系具有调节作用,在认知需要和认知能力较高的情况下,内、外部团队过程对决策质量和满意度的正向影响更强。     

CAPITAL,LABOR, AND THE FIRM: A STUDY OF GERMAN CODETERMINATION

Under the German corporate governance system of codetermination, employees are legally allocated control rights over corporate assets through seats on the supervisory board—that is, the board of nonexecutive directors. The supervisory board oversees the management board—the board of executive directors—approves or rejects its decisions, and appoints its members and sets their salaries. We empirically investigate the implications of this sort of labor participation in corporate decision making. We find that companies with equal representation of employees and shareholders on the supervisory board trade at a 31% stock market discount as compared with companies where employee representatives fill only one‐third of the supervisory board seats. We show that under equal representation, management board compensation provides incentives that are not conducive to furthering shareholders' interests, possibly because labor maximizes a different objective function than shareholders. We document that, under equal representation, companies have longer payrolls than their one‐third representation peers have. Finally, we provide evidence that shareholders respond to the allocation of control rights to labor by linking supervisory board compensation to firm performance and by leveraging up the firm. (JEL: G32, G34)     

Fast and rigorous: Configurational determinants of strategic decision-making balance

A longstanding debate in the strategic decision-making literature has focused on whether top management teams (TMTs) can effectively balance speed and comprehensiveness when making important decisions. In our research, we build on early insights and pivot from considering whether TMTs can engage indecision-making that balances these tensions to focus instead on when certain types of TMTs are able to achieve such balance. We employ a novel configurational analytical approach and a theoretical framework built from role theory to examine the CEO-TMT interface in a new way. In so doing, we are able to identify specific CEO-TMT constellations that support decision-making that is both fast and rigorous. Using a unique primary dataset and an abductive, configurational approach grounded in fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), we identify six specific leader-team configurations that each facilitate decision processes characterized by rigorous intra-team debate, meaningful reconciliation of divergent ideas, and fast decision speed (which we describe as strategic decision-making balance). The range of CEO-TMT configurations that emerge from our analyses contribute new theory and findings for the strategic decision-making and interface literatures more broadly, as well as the specific research streams on executive gender, humility, and TMT structure.     

Benefiting from CEO's empowerment of TMTs: Does CEO–TMT dissimilarity matter?

This study examines empowering leadership from an upper echelons perspective by focusing on top management teams (TMTs) and considering the demographic dissimilarities between the CEO and other TMT members. Data from a multisource survey of 129 Chinese firms demonstrate the importance of the fit between the backgrounds of the leader and the TMT members. Although empowerment of TMTs by CEOs predicts superior organizational performance in general, the findings show that this practice is most beneficial when the CEO and the TMT members differ in their informational demographics but have a longer tenure overlap. If either dissimilarity in informational demographics or tenure overlap is lacking, the CEO's empowerment of the TMT has a less positive effect on firm performance. Essentially, a three-way interaction is demonstrated. Introducing boundary conditions for the empowerment of TMTs by CEOs and testing their interactive influence broadens our understanding of how CEO leadership style can affect organizational performance, and refines the guidance for practitioners on TMT management.     

Wie unabh?ngig sind deutsche Aufsichtsr?te?

Within the German corporate governance system, the supervisory board fulfills several functions: monitoring and consultation of the management board, as well as reconciliation of interests. These divergent tasks might lead to conflicting demands. The agency theory focuses on the control function of the supervisory board and postulates a sufficient degree of independence from management. Following behavioral theories, the same requirement holds for the consultation function. In addition, on the basis of stakeholder theory, the reconciliation of interests emphasizes on the supervisory board’s independence from interests of individual stakeholder groups. Although in sum, the requirement of independence is one of the central corporate governance measures, the results of our empirical study indicate that only 5.9?% of the analyzed 527 DAX supervisory board members meet the examined independence criteria of the German Corporate Governance Code. Nevertheless, a comparison with Italian control committees shows that German supervisory board members fulfill the European Recommendations at a higher rate.     

Audit Within the Corporate Governance Paradigm: A Cornerstone Built on Shifting Sand?

This paper is a case study‐based investigation of aspects of the current paradigmatic approach to ‘good’ corporate governance, with its focus on the interlinked roles of internal control and risk management procedures, internal audit and external audit, overseen and coordinated by a formal structure of board committees, in particular the audit committee. The evidence that we adduce from the study of four high‐profile cases of perceived accounting and governance failure provides limited assurance that this approach will in fact be cost‐effective or efficient in preventing further such cases of accounting and governance failure. Specifically, issues as to remuneration and fee dependence, lack of relevant knowledge and expertise, social and psychological dependence upon executive management appear to have significantly and negatively affected the quality of decision‐making of governance gatekeepers. This suggests that further consideration of relevant economic, institutional and cognitive/behavioural factors beyond the rational choice model of traditional economics should underpin future developments in required modes and structures of governance.     

Top management team diversity and ambidexterity: The contingent role of shared responsibility and CEO cognitive trust

Earlier research has suggested that diversity is a double-edged sword when achieving organizational ambidexterity. While it may contribute to the development of new combinations of exploration and exploitation, it may also lead to disagreements and potential conflict within top management teams (TMTs). To improve our understanding of the effectiveness of diversity in ambidextrous organizations, we develop a synergistic perspective on TMT diversity and examine how two types of diversity – functional and age diversity – affect the achievement of organizational ambidexterity. We also identify shared responsibility and CEO cognitive trust as important contingencies that may complement the effects of diversity within TMTs in terms of resolving potential conflicts and managing tensions between exploration and exploitation effectively. Based on multisource data, our study shows that CEO cognitive trust and shared responsibility moderate the relationship between different types of diversity and ambidexterity. Our study has important implications for research on organizational ambidexterity, diversity, and senior leadership.     

The forms and use of intuition in top management teams

Nascent research suggests that benefits of intuition use accrue not only to individuals but also to teams. These benefits may be especially important for top management teams (TMTs), who formulate strategic decisions for their firms. However, work on intuition use in strategic decision making (SDM) remains focused on the intuitions of chief executive officers (CEOs). Furthermore, the emerging literature on team intuition is very fragmented, leaving an unclear picture of how teams may develop and use intuition in their decision-making activities. To address these problems, we integrate team intuition and TMT research to propose four forms of TMT intuition, which differ based on the locus and integration of intuition. We describe the forms of TMT intuition, clarify the mechanisms that shape them, and discuss their relevance for TMTs' decision-making activities. Overall, we advocate for strategy research that focuses on the notion of “team” in team intuition.     

一种基于区间直觉梯形模糊数偏好的大群体决策冲突测度研究

针对决策偏好为区间直觉梯形模糊数的大群体决策冲突测度问题,首先给出了两个区间直觉梯形模糊数的距离,提出了群体成员冲突函数,基于该函数对大群体成员偏好进行聚类形成若干聚集,以此为基础提出了聚集冲突测度模型并集结为群体冲突测度模型,然后应用于大群体偏好集结。最后通过一个算例对模型进行了验证。该模型便于大群体意见的分析与协调,适用于群决策支持系统,在应急决策中具有实际应用价值。     

Conflict in the boardroom: a participant observation study of supervisory board dynamics

We develop a conflict-oriented model of board task performance and argue that a common framework, that is, a shared understanding of its role, helps boards to perform well. Conflict is the mediating effect through which this plays out. We posit that a common framework increases board task performance because it reduces intragroup relationship conflicts, increases task conflicts within the board, and reduces conflicts in the relationship between board and CEO. We explore the model through a comparative participant observation study of 11 supervisory boards in action. The results show that while low levels of relationship conflict are typically considered a sign of a well-functioning board, the avoidance of relationship conflict negatively impacts board task performance and may lead to ‘cognitive blindness’. Boards of directors should manage—rather than avoid—relationship conflict. Based on our findings, we suggest an extended model of conflict in boards that takes into account the negative effect of conflict avoidance.     

The personality factor: how top management teams make decisions. A literature review

Past research has increasingly suggested that CEO/TMT personality can play a relevant role in influencing various external (e.g. firm performance) and internal (e.g. firm organizational structure) management outcomes. These promising results need appropriate systematization and discussion, which we aim at providing through a literature review based on rigorous inclusion/exclusion criteria. Our analysis shows great heterogeneity in regard to both the personality traits and the personality based management outcomes explored by the investigated population of studies. Thus, we specifically use the framework provided by the Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality to codify the publications and this framework allows us to identify some possible theoretical trajectories. These trajectories mainly regard the empirical testing of the highlighted associations between CEO emotional stability, extraversion and conscientiousness with bureaucratization, strategic pro-activity and firm performance. Our article is primarily intended for those scholars and practitioners who want to improve their knowledge about psychology-based decision making and behavioural corporate governance through the understanding of how CEO/TMT personality can affect their strategic decisions.     

Why and when female directors are less engaged in their board duties: An interface perspective

Female representation on boards is perhaps one of the most studied topics in board-governance research. At the same time, much is unknown about female directors' task engagement within boards. Drawing from psychological theory on societal gender beliefs, our study tests whether the impact of director gender on supervisory task engagement hinges on status dynamics in two relational interfaces: the director–board interface and the director–CEO interface. According to this perspective, female directors show less task engagement because gender is a diffuse status cue that creates status differentiation within the director–board interface. Multi-source board survey data (n = 61 boards, n = 315 directors) confirms that, within the confines of the boardroom, female directors do, indeed, receive lower-status ratings than male directors. This effect is weaker when boards have a female chair. Furthermore, lower status explains perceived lower task engagement of female directors, but this link critically hinges on the CEO–director interface. The impact of status differences is more pronounced when directors intersect with a relatively dominant CEO. All in all, the results demonstrate that relational interfaces play a key role for female directors’ task engagement in their board duties.     

Does task-related conflict mediate the board gender diversity–organizational performance relationship?

The board gender diversity–organizational performance relationship has been criticized for the absence of tests of the underlying mechanisms of this relationship. This study aims to empirically investigate whether task-related conflict – one of the prime theorized mechanisms of board diversity – indeed mediates this relationship. Consistent with the literature, we theorize how board gender diversity affects task-related conflict, and how task-related conflict in turn affects organizational performance. We test our hypotheses in the Dutch water authority sector 2009–2014, where we have access to the detailed board meeting minutes of 27 organizations. Our results find support for a partial mediating effect of task-related conflict in the board gender diversity–organizational performance relationship. We conclude by discussing the implications for the board gender diversity literature.     

中国上市公司监事会治理绩效评价与实证研究

本文在对现有监事会评价理论与实践回顾基础上,结合中国自身环境条件及改革进程,设计了中国上市公司监事会治理绩效评价指标体系,并且利用调研数据,对上市公司监事会治理水平进行了评价与实证研究。结果显示,监事会治理总体水平较低,不同行业、不同企业性质之间的治理水平存在着很大差别,大股东的持股比例亦对监事会治理的有效性具有显著影响。     

Emotionally intelligent top management and high family firm performance: Evidence from Germany

Executives in family firms are often confronted with emotionally loaded issues, in part due to the need to include the interests of the owning family. Given this context, we hypothesize how high family-firm performance is affected by the emotional intelligence (EI) of a family-based CEO and top-management team (TMT), in addition to the CEO's transformational leadership (TFL) and TMT's behavioral integration. Survey measures were taken from a random sample of 72 CEOs of German family firms and 245 members of their TMTs. We found that TMT behavioral integration mediates between CEO TFL and objective firm performance while CEO EI is significantly related to both CEO TFL and TMT EI. Implications are discussed for future research thereby suggesting an extension to upper-echelon theory.