Three Essays on the Antecedents of Structural Changes in Top Management Teams

This dissertation examines the antecedents of structural changes in top management teams (TMTs). While upper echelons research has mostly focused on the composition, processes, incentives, and leaders of top management teams, structure dimension of TMTs remained relatively unexplored. This thesis shifts the focus to the emerging research on TMT structures by exploring how and why TMT structures change along the role and hierarchy dimensions and by investigating how and why TMTs become structurally interdependent. This dissertation consists of three studies, each of which explores distinct characteristics of TMT structures. Study 1 focuses on the role structures and investigates the antecedents of the presence of a new generational role in TMTs, namely Chief Innovation Officers. Study 2 applies a more general lens and investigates the determinants of the structural interdependence across TMTs. Finally, Study 3 explores the TMT hierarchical structures by analyzing their characteristics and determinants. This doctoral thesis integrates upper echelons literature with different theoretical approaches such as contingency, institutional, and behavioral theory of the firm. It also adopts different research methodologies as inductive and deductive by collecting unique data on Standard & Poor (S&P) 500 firms. Overall, this dissertation makes significant theoretical contributions. First, it responds to the calls from many scholars to pay more attention into the structure of TMTs. Second, it treats TMT characteristics and structures as consequences rather than antecedents to firm performance and explores the determinants of different TMT structural reconfigurations accordingly. Finally, it introduces behavioral theory of the firm as a new lens to analyze the antecedents of TMT structural changes by demonstrating how firms can engage in problemistic search for their TMT structures when they are below their performance aspirations.