Top management team diversity and high performance: An integrative approach based on upper echelons and complexity theory

This paper analyses Top Management Team (TMT) composition diversity as an antecedent of firm performance in accordance with a recent paradigm based on Complexity Theory. Research into TMT diversity is commonly seen as a double-edged sword because inconclusive results have been achieved in prior stud...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEuropean management journal Vol. 38; no. 1; pp. 157 - 168
Main Authors Díaz-Fernández, M. Carmen, González- Rodríguez, M. Rosario, Simonetti, Biagio
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford Elsevier Ltd 01.02.2020
Elsevier Science Ltd
Subjects
Asymmetric testing
Comparative analysis
Complexity
Complexity theory
Corporate culture
Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis
High firm performance
Integrative approach
Organizational performance
Regression analysis
Reliance
Teams
TMT composition diversity
Top management
Workplace diversity
TMT composition diversity
High firm performance
Complexity theory
Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis
Asymmetric testing
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Summary:This paper analyses Top Management Team (TMT) composition diversity as an antecedent of firm performance in accordance with a recent paradigm based on Complexity Theory. Research into TMT diversity is commonly seen as a double-edged sword because inconclusive results have been achieved in prior studies. This controversy has reinforced the call to employ a more appropriate methodology by moving beyond the reliance on multiple regression analysis and towards the use of fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. The study provides various TMT diversity configurations that lead to high performance. The study therefore contributes towards the TMT diversity literature by utilising asymmetric testing to advance in the understanding of the diversity of TMT attributes as an antecedent of high firm outcome. The paradigm currently facing TMT internal complexity is doubly relevant for managers, to ascertain the best TMT diversity compositions to achieve the best strategic goal and thereby the highest firm outcome, and for new research avenues in the demographic literature, to obtain richer insights from TMT data, which might provide additional information on the complex relations established within these TMTs.
ISSN:0263-2373
1873-5681
DOI:10.1016/j.emj.2019.06.006