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Presents an original top management team‐based approach to management competences. Based on the results of a survey of thousands of top executives across Europe and many years of in‐depth consultancy and research with top executives, presents a practical guide to the key top management team competences identified by top executives as essential to success and to the impact of poor performance in these key competence areas. Additionally, presents the results in a cross‐cultural framework and outlines the need, in an international business environment, for a heightened understanding of the impact of cultural differences in management behaviour, performance, and expectations. Also considers the management development implications of the findings.

This study examines how technical drivers as well as social drivers influence organic communication and top management involvement (TMI) in new product development (NPD) projects. Technical drivers are of strategic importance and product innovativeness and social drivers are of intrinsic and extrinsic relevance. Organic communication is defined as continuous, bidirectional and informal communication between top management and the NPD teams. Further, arguing that TMI must be studied as a multifaceted construct, it is conceptualized to occur as guidance, active motivation and providing resources and creating a tolerant climate. Subsequently, the effect of TMI and organic communication on NPD performance is investigated.

The data set, collected via surveys from top managers and project managers involved in 86 NPD projects in 85 firms, is analyzed using PLS structural equation modeling.

The authors show that the strategic importance of the project has a positive influence on TMI through active motivation, providing resources and creating a tolerant climate for innovation, but does not have an effect on guidance. Results also show that active motivation and organic communication improve budget and schedule adherence, whereas providing guidance and stimulating a tolerant climate have detrimental effects. In summary, the results show that only active motivation enhances all types of performance while stimulating a tolerant climate appears to have the opposite effect. The results revealed that organic communication between top management and the NPD team has a strong positive effect on all elements of TMI (providing guidance, actively motivating the NPD team, providing resources and creating a tolerant climate). In other words, when top management communicates with the NPD team throughout the project in an informal way and listens to them in addition to engaging in a one-way communication, they are more likely to be seen by the team as being deeply involved in the project.

Executives must walk a managerial tightrope to actively motivate and to assist in providing resources, yet they must not be overbearing with direct guidance and must limit their tolerance for failures.

Involvement of key organizational actors such as top management and the link to project performance has attracted significant attention in research. However, nuanced empirical insights into the dyad of top management and project teams has so far been absent. The study’s findings detail the effect of technical and social drivers of top management involvement in new product development projects. Most notably, (1) the effect of motivation and stimulating a tolerant climate on performance, and (2) the effect of organic communication on top management involvement. Moreover, this study is unique in that it empirically examines TMI from both top management and team perspectives.

Since the mid-1980s, much research attention has been devoted to top management teams and their impact on the strategic behavior and performance of firms. In particular, this research has focused on the role of top managers’ background, values, and experiences in explaining the choices they make. So far, this research has largely failed to address the national context in which top management teams are formed and operate. Empirical studies have typically involved top management teams of U.S. firms. Other studies are rare, and when they exist, they usually do not take the national context into account. This paper explores the impact of national context characterized by society-specific value systems and institutions, on the composition, organization, and functioning of top management. We address three topics in particular: (1) national variations in the structure and practices of top management and their implications for managerial choices; (2) national governance systems that define and constrain the tasks and functioning of top management teams; and (3) national institutions that help to define managerial selection, promotion, and career patterns.

Although management scholars have displayed a strong interest in top management teams, surprisingly little research has been devoted to the international dimensions of top management teams including their international diversity and their societal and cultural underpinnings. This paper provides a recent overview of empirical studies addressing the international dimension of top management teams and identifies avenues for future research. Particular attention is paid to the role of the institutional and cultural societal context in shaping the configuration of top management.

Top management support is recognized as the most critical factor for the success of large information system (IS) projects. However, getting this support is often difficult, because top management has multiple priorities and one has to compete with others to obtain such support. Political maneuvering is thus an integral and necessary part of the process of obtaining top management support. In this chapter the authors review current research on this topic and organize and synthesize our findings into a framework. The authors then propose four specific strategies which can be used to obtain top management support, including the following: (1) social capital, (2) social engagement, (3) rational persuasion, and (4) exchange strategies. While the authors argue that all four strategies should be applied, the specific circumstances in which they should be applied vary. A two-stage process is proposed that identifies the appropriate criteria for determining the most appropriate strategy. The criteria are: (1) the type of top management support needed (i.e., durable vs immediate) and (2) the level of top management-project team trust (i.e., high vs low).

This paper aims to demonstrate that corporate philanthropy can be driven from the bottom to the top. In particular, the authors investigate whether employees’ donations influence corporate philanthropy and under what conditions this effect occurs.

The sample consists of Chinese listed firms that disclosed the amount employees donated in response to the Sichuan earthquake in 2008. The Heckman two-stage selection model is applied to examine the effect of employees’ donations on corporate philanthropy and the conditions under which this effect occurs.

The results show that employees’ donations are positively associated with corporate philanthropy. Furthermore, a higher percentage of females in top management teams can significantly strengthen the effect of employees’ donations on corporate philanthropy. When the average age of the top management team members is high, the influence of employees’ donations on corporate philanthropy is stronger.

This is an empirical study that helps to predict corporate philanthropy. Another practical implication is that employees should be recognized as an important element of corporate social responsibility.

The results encourage employees to become drivers of corporate social responsibility.

This study contributes to the corporate social responsibility literature by demonstrating that corporate philanthropy can be driven from the bottom to the top. Moreover, this study integrates signaling theory into the study of corporate social responsibility. Finally, this study identifies two important contingent factors that strengthen the effect of employees on top managers’ decisions about corporate social responsibility.

The chapter focuses on the personal characteristics of top executives in companies involved in corporate financial crime as well as the introduction of human governance as one of the mechanisms in preventing corporate misbehaviour. This chapter discusses directors’ and top management teams’ personal characteristics – in the context of corporate governance – that may influence the occurrence of corporate financial crime. The study further proposes the human governance factor as a possible mechanism to improve corporate governance in preventing such misbehaviour. This chapter highlights the personal characteristics of top executives, which may become the indicators of corporate financial crime, as well as human governance, which is shown to be one of the most important mechanisms of corporate governance for corporate financial crime prevention.

To complement previous research on team performance, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the development of team performance and top management approval at the team level. In the proposed model, team performance and top management approval are influenced by the team leader’s charisma, teamwork exhaustion, and goal clarity via the full mediation of team planning. The effects of the leader’s charisma and goal clarity on team planning are moderated by teamwork exhaustion.

Empirical testing of this model based on hierarchical regression modeling, by investigating team personnel in high-tech firms, confirms the applicability of team planning among these firms’ work teams.

A team leader’s charisma and goal clarity positively relate to team planning, while teamwork exhaustion is not associated with team planning. Team planning further positively relates to team performance and top management approval, respectively. A team leader’s charisma negatively moderates the relationship between teamwork exhaustion and team planning, while goal clarity positively moderates the relationship between teamwork exhaustion and team planning.

While previous literature has focused in depth on team planning and its antecedents and outcomes, there still exists an important gap regarding potential moderation in the formation of team planning. This study provides some important findings that complement previous literature by examining three fresh exogenous determinants for explaining team planning, their interaction effects, and how they indirectly relate to team performance and top management approval via the full mediation of team planning.

This paper aims to examine the impact of humble leadership on project success. The authors propose that such an effect is mediated by team-building, and top management support moderates the direct relationship (humble leadership and project success) as well as an indirect relationship through team-building.

Data were collected from 337 individuals employed in the information technology sector of Pakistan. A two-step approach consisting confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling was used for analysis. To examine conditional direct and indirect effects, the authors utilized model 8 in PROCESS.

The results showed that humble leadership is positively related to project success. Furthermore, team-building partially mediates the relationship between humble leadership and project success. Moreover, top management support was anticipated to have a moderating effect on the direct and indirect link (via team-building) between humble leadership and project success.

Drawing on the conservation of resources theory, this study found that how humble leadership is vital for project success, and thus, extends the utility of the concept of humble leadership to the project literature.

The purpose of this research is to explore the effects of the diversity of experience and different personalities of top management team members on mediating processes such as agenda‐setting, the generating of strategic alternatives, and the speed of strategic decision making. Previous research has studied the effects of top management team characteristics on strategic decision‐making and performance by analyzing team demographics such as age and tenure – with ambiguous results.

In a multi‐case study approach, 46 members of eight top management teams were interviewed and surveyed.

The study suggests that the ambiguity of research results can be decreased by: introducing more deep‐level measures; and further differentiating the mediating processes. The results indicate that diversity of experience affects agenda‐setting and the generating of alternatives but – unexpectedly – does not appear to affect the speed of decision making. Personality factors such as flexibility, achievement motivation, networking abilities, and action orientation seem to have a clearer impact on decision speed.

This study suggests ways to build successful teams by differentiating between the effects of experiences and personalities of team members. Furthermore, it indicates that teams might be able to compensate for different strengths and weaknesses within the team, and stresses the importance of transparent strategic objectives and leadership.

This study extends existing research by proposing ways to reduce the ambiguity of recent research results regarding the effects of management teams on strategic decision making. It is based on a broad empirical research and offers theoretical and managerial implications.