The Rise of Multinational Top Management Teams and Boards
Type
applied research project
Start Date
01 January 2005
URI
Status
ongoing
Description
As firms internationalise, they face increasingly complex environments and must learn to deal with the challenges that go along with the establishment of foreign operations. Appointing foreign directors at board and top management team level has been one way that firms have handled such challenges, as this enables the company to draw upon a larger knowledge-base at the top of the organisation and extends the company's international business networks. At the same time, this creates new challenges associated with integrating foreign nationals into established cultures, and generating the best possible performance for the company.

This project has adopted predominantly a quantitative approach, based on the construction and statistical analysis of large scale databases of leading companies in the world's most advanced economies. This work enables us to identify the determinants and consequences of the creation of multinational top management teams and boards. In addition, case study research is being carried out at companies to identify the process implications of creating multinational top management teams and boards.
Leader contributor(s)
Member contributor(s)
Tacheva, Sabina
Nauheimer, Marie
Owtscharov, Alexis
Funder(s)
Range
HSG Internal
Range (De)
HSG Intern
Division(s)
Eprints ID
13194

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 11
  • Publication
    The Rise of an International Market for Executive Labour
    (Emerald Group Publishing, 2008)
    Ruigrok, Winfried
    ;
    Greve, Peder
    ;
    Oxelheim, Lars
    This paper explores the rise of an international market for top management team members in Europe, identifying patterns and trends, and exploring the antecedents to the emergence of TMT nationality diversity. We analyse a panel dataset of large European non-financial firms based in Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. This dataset consists of more than 7000 individual observations of executives' nationalities at the year-ends of 2005, 2004, 2002, and 2000. We find that over this period Swiss, Dutch, and Finnish firms stepped up the hiring of foreign top executives, while Danish and Norwegian firms employed a lower percentage of foreign top managers. We identify some key antecedents to top management team internationalisation, most notably firms' executive compensation and foreign ownership levels.
    Type: book section
    Issue: Vol. 24
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/79567
  • Publication
    Age matters: Top management team demographic faultlines and firm performance
    ( 2008-08-11)
    Ruigrok, Winfried
    ;
    Ren, Rong
    ;
    Greve, Peder
    This study applies the group faultlines model (Lau & Murnighan, 1998) to the upper echelons framework, and provides evidence of how to achieve higher levels of firm performance through effective management of the interactions between demographic traits and structural configuration (i.e., dispersion and alignment) of a diverse team. Using a sample of 602 executives from 96 Swiss large firms, we find that demographic faultlines have a negative impact on firm performance and that top management team (TMT) average age has a curvilinear impact on firm performance. Our study also suggests that there may be joint effects of certain demographic traits and overall team composition: older executives, in addition to their independent association to firm performance, are also better able to enhance firm performance given certain faultline setting, which by itself has a negative impact on firm performance.
    Type: conference paper
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/77987
  • Publication
    Transparency differences at the top of the organization: Market-pull versus strategic hoarding forces
    (Oxford University Press, 2014)
    Ruigrok, Winfried
    ;
    Georgakakis, Dimitrios
    ;
    Greve, Peder
    This chapter examines the opposing forces that induce or impede firms to become transparent in terms of their board of directors' (BoD) and top management teams' (TMT) demographic characteristics, education and experiences. Extant literature on governance transparency often draws on a "market-pull perspective" to emphasize the market-level motives that drive organizations toward rising levels of governance transparency. In this chapter we introduce the "strategic hoarding perspective", which emphasizes the human capital attrition factors that discourage firms to openly report information about their BoD and TMT composition. Our theory and data from 208 large listed firms in Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands for the years 2005 and 2009 suggest that organizations' relative transparency preferences in terms of BoD and TMT characteristics can better be explained based on a combination of market-pull and strategic hoarding perspectives. Implications and directions for further research are discussed.
    Type: book section
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/88037
  • Publication
    International mobility in executive labour markets
    (D-Druck Spescha, 2009)
    Greve, Peder
    The international mobility of executives offers both opportunities and challenges for multinational firms. In this study, we draw upon economic and sociological approaches to labour market mobility to outline the key properties of mobility in executive labour markets. Subsequently, we apply our basic model of executive labour market mobility to the context of internationalising firms and employ theories of information-processing and legitimacy to develop a theoretical framework that identifies the drivers of international executive labour market utilisation and the constraints on cross-border mobility of executives. Empirical analysis is based on a large unbalanced panel dataset consisting of 415 large non-financial firms from seven European countries (Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK) and 4,552 unique executive profiles recorded over a five-year period between 2000 and 2005. We use this dataset to empirically test 26 hypotheses related to the antecedents and effects of cross-border mobility of executives, using a variety of analytical techniques. We draw three main findings from our data analysis. First, firms exert demand for foreign executives as a function of needs imposed by the type and magnitude of their internationalisation strategies. Internationalisation strategies are therefore key drivers of international executive labour market utilisation. Second, firms discriminate between foreign and domestic candidates in the executive labour market due to perceived information constraints and place narrow demands on the candidate profiles of foreign relative to domestic executive appointees. This imposes fundamental constraints on the international mobility of executives. Third, effective utilisation of the international executive labour market adds requisite levels of international capacity to the top management team, enabling firms to pursue expansive internationalisation strategies without incurring substantial performance losses.
    Type: doctoral thesis
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/76904
  • Publication
    Does nationality still matter? (3) National identity still matters at top management teams
    (Caspian Publishing, 2008-04-01)
    Ruigrok, Winfried
    ;
    Greve, Peder
    The lack of mobility in the international executive labour market proves that where senior management is concerned nationality still matters a great deal.
    Type: newspaper article
    Journal: European Business Forum
    Volume: 32
    Issue: 1
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/78516
  • Publication
    An empirical study of the managerial labour market in Moldova
    (EIBA European International Business Academy, 2011-12-08)
    Greve, Peder
    ;
    Ruigrok, Winfried
    ;
    Gremalschi, Anatol
    ;
    Barbarosie, Arcadie
    ;
    Casap, Lucia
    This paper employs a unique dataset collected in the Republic of Moldova, a small European transition economy, to examine the managerial characteristics that are associated with individual external mobility propensities in the Moldovan managerial labour market. Empirical findings show that there is an expected generation gap in the fluidity of managerial labour markets, i.e. that younger managers are more likely to have entered the managerial labour market via an external labour market strategy than their older counterparts. Furthermore, foreign work experience is strongly associated with the frequency of managerial labour market participants' external labour market moves, suggesting that such experience is a scarce human capital resource and that it is perceived in the labour market as a valuable trait that produces frequent inter-company moves. Meanwhile, there is only limited empirical support for the hypothesis that males experience more frequent inter-company career moves than females. We outline how this study contributes to our understanding of managers' external mobility propensities in embryonic managerial labour markets and discuss theoretical and practical implications of our findings.
    Type: conference paper
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/93082
  • Publication
    The internationalisation of top management teams and boards in Nordic countries
    (FIM, 2003-12-12)
    Greve, Peder
    ;
    Ruigrok, Winfried
    As firms internationalise, they face increasingly complex environments and must learn to deal with the challenges that go along with the establishment of foreign operations. Appointing foreign directors at board and top management team level is one way of handling such challenges, as this enables the company to draw upon a larger knowledge-base at the top of the organisation and extends the company's international business networks. A sample of 118 companies from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden was employed in order to test whether higher levels of internationalisation increases the likelihood of appointing foreigners board and top management level. The effects of foreign ownership, government interest, and large-scale merger activity were also studied. Results show broad support for the hypothesised relationships between internationalisation indicators and composition of boards and top management teams.
    Type: conference paper
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/69120
  • Publication
    Transcending Borders with International Top Management Teams: A Study of European Financial MNCs
    (Elsevier, 2009-06-01)
    Greve, Peder
    ;
    Nielsen, Sabina
    ;
    Ruigrok, Winfried
    This paper investigates how changes in firm degree of internationalization are associated with the configuration of top management teams (TMT) based on a dataset of 41 large European firms in the banking and insurance industry, including detailed career profiles of the 264 executives that were serving on the TMTs of these firms at year-end 2002. Our findings suggest firms tend to match top executive profiles to their strategies. Entry into new foreign markets and new cultural zones was found to be associated with higher levels of international capacity at TMT level, whereas changes in international posture per se are not related to TMT international capacity. We discuss the interplay between firm strategies and internal structures in the context of firm internationalization and suggest directions for future research on TMTs.
    Type: journal article
    Journal: European Management Journal
    Volume: 27
    Issue: 3
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/75976
  • Publication
    Top management team influence and discretion in foreign market entry mode decisions
    (Academy of International Business, 2013-07-05)
    Imbach, Mathias
    ;
    Greve, Peder
    ;
    Ruigrok, Winfried
    How firms expand beyond their home country is one of the most fundamental questions in international business. Drawing on agency theory and taking into account particularities of the Indian study sample and context, we find that board monitoring of the TMT, which impacts executives' latitude of action, moderates the effects of strategic decision-making (SDM) and rational choice (RC) models on firms' market entry mode decisions. In the SDM model, the link between TMT international experience and a preference for lower control entry modes is stronger in environments with low TMT monitoring. In the RC model, the association between prior firm multinational experience and preference for high control entry modes is stronger in environments with high TMT monitoring. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of these findings in the context of internationalizing multinational enterprises from emerging markets.
    Type: conference paper
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/88987
  • Publication
    Diffusing the Differences : TMT heterogeneity, firm performance, and the moderating role of age
    (Academy of Management, 2010-08-10)
    Ruigrok, Winfried
    ;
    Ren, Rong
    ;
    Greve, Peder
    This study revisits the link between top management team (TMT) heterogeneity and firm performance by examining two distinct operationalizations of TMT heterogeneity and investigating the largely unexplored role of TMT member age as a moderator of heterogeneity-performance relationships. First, we draw upon recent advances in team diversity research to suggest that operationalizations of heterogeneity based on dispersion (diversity) and alignment (faultlines) display contrasting relationships with firm performance. Second, we build an argument based on the continuity theory of ageing to suggest that the moderating effect of TMT member age on the heterogeneity-performance relationship is contingent upon the TMT heterogeneity configuration. Hypothesis tests based on a cross-national dataset of 220 large European companies reveal considerable support for our contentions. We discuss the implications of our findings for TMT composition practices and outline avenues for subsequent research.
    Type: conference paper
    Volume: Paper Session 1491
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/96084