International Experience Heterogeneity Effects On Top Management Team Advice Networks: A Hierarchical Analysis

Zusammenfassung

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This study examines the MNC top-management-team's (TMT) international attribute profile, its relationship with its individual team member international attributes and the joint effect these two levels of international attributes have on the individual's position in the TMT advice network on international business advice. In particular, this study examines how diversity in the international experience of each manager individually and in the context of the international experience of the entire team influences a manager's centrality in providing international business advice to the team. A hierarchical data structure design allows the examination of cross-level effects, given that a TMT member's network centrality may be a function of both individual level and group level influences. Strong support was found for considering centrality a function of both individual and group level attributes with each level accounting for approximately half of the variability in centrality. Mechanisms at one level of analysis may be different, or have different effects, than mechanisms at another level of analysis.

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Auszug

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International Experience Heterogeneity Effects On Top Management Team Advice Networks: A Hierarchical Analysis

Introduction

Facilitated by Hambrick and Mason's (1984) upper-echelon perspective, research has associated top management team (TMT) demography with a variety of organizational outcomes. Extending this research tradition, recent studies have examined the relationship between TMT characteristics and international outcomes. Observing that competing internationally introduces the firm to additional complexities associated with diverse cultural, institutional and competitive environments, Sanders and Carpenter (1998) argue that the top management team must have the global competencies or mindset necessary to cope with this added complexity. Supporting this view, Sambharya (1996), Reuber and Fischer (1997), and Tihanyi et al. (2000) found that the foreign experience of the TMT is related to the international diversification, i.e., internationalization, activities of the firm. Further, Tihanyi et al. (2000) linked lower age, tenure, elite education and tenure experience heterogeneity to firm international diversification while Sanders and Carpenter (1998) linked the size of the TMT to firm internationalization. Thus, there is preliminary evidence that characteristics of the TMT may be useful in understanding internationallyoriented outcomes.

The purpose of this study is to extend the TMT literature by building our understanding of how such a team's international demographic characteristics influence the interactions among team members through which they exchange information on international business issues. While previous research typically considers communication simply as the frequency or formality of exchanges in general, here we examine an issue-specific communication network. In particular, we examine the influence, that is, the role, of each TMT member with respect to providing international business (IB) advice, or expertise, to the team. Using Klein et al.'s terminology, we focus on heterogeneity effects where the level of analysis is "neither the individual, nor the group, but the individual within the gro...

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