Premium
Changing of the Guard: the Influence of CEO Socialization on Strategic Change[Note 1. Address for reprints: Nanette Fondas, Duke University, Fuqua School ...][Note 2. The order of the authors' names is alphabetical and ...]
Author(s) -
Fondas Nanette,
Wiersema Margarethe
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
journal of management studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.398
H-Index - 184
eISSN - 1467-6486
pISSN - 0022-2380
DOI - 10.1111/1467-6486.00063
Subject(s) - socialization , situational ethics , upper echelons , strategic leadership , successor cardinal , strategic planning , process (computing) , insider , perspective (graphical) , business , public relations , strategic management , psychology , social psychology , political science , marketing , computer science , mathematical analysis , mathematics , artificial intelligence , law , operating system
This paper utilizes socialization theory to describe why some chief executive successions lead to a change in a firm's strategic direction and others do not. We argue that socialization theory permits the identification of a constellation of individual and situational characteristics that can drive or restrain strategic change following succession. Specifically, we develop a framework of how differences in chief executives' prior work experience, educational background, personal characteristics, and differences in the role's requirements and socialization agents' characteristics, can all serve as forces driving or restraining the likelihood of strategic change. This perspective goes beyond the distinction between a successor's origin as an organizational insider or outsider used in previous research to explain the strategic implication of chief executive succession. It provides a description of an underlying process – socialization – that constitutes a theoretical rationale for the link between executive successions and strategic outcomes.