Browsing by Subject "Upper Echelons"
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Item Goal Orientation as Shaping the Firm's Entrepreneurial Orientation and Performance(2011-02-22) Webb, Justin W.Firms? top decision makers cannot possibly know what decisions to make. Rather, decision makers must interpret their situations and make the best possible decision based upon their interpretation of their situations. In this dissertation, I examine decision-makers? goal orientations as influencing how they interpret their situations and then respond through making decisions in terms of their firms? entrepreneurial orientations. I also examine whether these decisions influence firm performance. I surveyed top firm decision makers in the Association of Former Students? database at Texas A and M University. The hypotheses were tested using a structural equation modeling. Using a sample of 273 firms, I find that decision-makers? goal orientations shape their firm?s entrepreneurial orientations, which in turn influence firm growth, relative performance, and expected future performance. Possessing a learning goal orientation was found to be positively related to innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk taking. A performance prove goal orientation was positively related to innovativeness, whereas a performance avoid goal orientation was negatively related to innovativeness and risk taking. Only a proactive firm posture was found to be positively related to firm performance. The results for this dissertation provide compelling support for upper echelons theory. Decision-makers? finer-grained personal attributes are found to shape firm-level outcomes. More specifically, decision-makers? goal orientations are found to shape the firm?s entrepreneurial orientation and, to some extent, performance. Interestingly, coarse-grained personal attributes captured in demographic proxies and used as control variables in the analyses did not provide consistent support for upper echelons theory. The results suggest that scholars need to take a finer-grained perspective of upper echelons theory. A substantial amount of research has established the link between individuals? goal orientations and how they interpret and respond to their situations. The research here has extended this relationship to the top decision-making context in firms where individuals face strong situational forces caused by uncertainty, complexity, and dynamism. I hope that this research encourages other scholars to (1) examine more complex models of how decision-makers? personal attributes influence their entrepreneurial decisions in terms of both recognizing and exploiting opportunities, and (2) examine other finer-grained attributes of top decision makers within a finer-grained framework of the decision-making process.Item Managerial prestige and post-IPO firm performance: a partially mediated model(2009-05-15) Reutzel, Christopher RayThe role of top managers in shaping the performance of the firms that employ them represents a central issue to strategic management research. Indeed, a substantial amount of research has examined potential linkages between the characteristics of top managers and firm performance. However the empirical results of research in this area have been ambiguous. This study attempts to theoretically and empirically extend research on the influence of top managers on firm performance by examining the relationship between managerial prestige and firm performance in the post-IPO context. Although upper echelons researchers have attempted to link top managers with firm performance in the past recent reviews of the upper echelons research note that little attention has been paid to top management characteristics other than those of top management team (TMT) heterogeneity, TMT size and TMT tenure. Additionally, recent reviews also suggest the need to consider potential intervening mechanisms between TMT characteristics and firm performance. This study addresses these two limitations of prior upper echelons research by examining the direct and indirect influences of managerial prestige on post-IPO firm performance.In this study I develop a model which incorporates the resource based view and resource dependence theory with insights from upper echelons research and research on the IPO context. Results for the model developed in this study suggest the following. First, executive undergraduate prestige is positively related to post-IPO firm growth. The other aspects of managerial prestige examined in this study were not found to influence post-IPO firm performance. Second, the influence of the key external resource holders identified in this study, namely prestigious alliance partners and institutional investors with stable equity portfolios, were found to enhance firm survival rates, but were negatively associated with firm growth. Third, executive undergraduate prestige was found to garner the support of prestigious alliance partners. The remaining aspects of managerial prestige were not found to influence the support of prestigious alliance partners or dedicated institutional investors. Finally, no support was found for prestigious alliance partners and dedicated institutional investors as mediators of the relationship between managerial prestige and post-IPO firm performance.