This study employed upper echelon perspective, social capital perspective, and strategic leadership and leadership style perspectives to examine the effects of CEO transformational leadership and CEO dominance on the three internal social capital dimensions, i.e. structural, relationship, and cognitive capital, of top management team (TMT). It also investigated the effects of the TMT internal social capitals on firm performance, and the mediating roles of the TMT social capital in the CEO leadership-performance relationship. The unit of analysis is at the firm level. Structural equation modeling conducted with LISREL was employed to test the fitness of overall hypothesized model and the significance of hypothesized relationships among studied variables. Empirical results showed that the theoretical models fit the data very well, and most of hypotheses are supported; the significance of top executives and interactions on firm outcomes were significantly ascertained. Specifically, CEO dominance may produce negative effects on TMT network density and trust while CEO transformational leadership may promote TMT network density, trust, and shared vision. On the other hand, TMT network density may foster firm performance. Finally, results showed that TMT network density mediated the relationships of CEO leadership and firm performance. This study has significant implications for upper echelons perspective, the integration of strategic leadership and leadership style research, and the applications of social capital perspective. Research findings also exhibit valuable insights for the strategic implications of TMT dynamics in business practices. Limitations and future directions were discussed for further extensions.

Family firms play a significant role in the U.S. economy, making up about 35 percent of S&P 500 or Fortune 500 companies and contributing about 65 percent to the U.S. GDP. This research explores differences in strategic behavior and firm performance between family firms and non-family firms, and further explores whether family firms such as Dell Inc. that use their founding family’s name as part of their firm name (termed family-named firms, or FN firms) behave and perform any differently versus family firms such as Gap Inc. whose firm name does not include their family’s name (termed non-family-named firms, or NFN firms). The first study which is based on a multi-industry sample of 130 publicly listed U.S. family firms over a five-year period (2002–2006), reveals that compared to NFN firms, FN firms have significantly higher levels of corporate citizenship and representation of their customers' voice (i.e., presence of a chief marketing officer) in the top management team. FN firms also have a higher strategic emphasis (i.e., a greater emphasis on value appropriation relative to value creation) compared to NFN firms. Furthermore, FN firms perform better (i.e., have a higher ROA) than NFN firms, and their superior performance is partially mediated by their higher corporate citizenship levels and strategic emphasis. In the second study — an event study of 1294 product introduction announcements of 107 publicly listed U.S. family firms from 2005-2007 — I find that relative to NFN firms, FN firms are rewarded more by the stock market for introducing new products. Superior returns to FN firms’ new product introductions are partially mediated by these firms’ history of trustworthy product-related behavior: FN firms, particularly those with corporate branding, and those wherein a founding family member holds the CEO or Chairman position, are more likely to exhibit a history of avoiding such product-related controversies as product safety issues, and deceptive advertising. The third study explores differences in strategic behavior and firm performance between family firms and non-family firms in the context of 7 U.S. economic recessions between the years 1970 and 2008. Findings based on a sample of 428 U.S. publicly listed firms reveal that family firms consistently outperform non-family firms during economic recessions. This superior performance is partially driven by family firms’ unique strategic behavior: during recessions, family firms maintain higher levels of advertising intensity, exhibit lower financial leverage, and get involved in fewer social and employee-related unethical actions than non-family firms. The three studies taken together have important implications for family firm, branding, CSR, firm valuation, and innovation-related theory and practice. I highlight these implications in my dissertation. / text

This research examines the exit of a subsidiary from its corporate parent through spin-off, the actions taken by the firm management post spin-off, and the performance implications of those actions, all from the spin-off's perspective. While spin-off announcements are generally met with a positive stock market reaction, what occurs post spin-off remains largely unexamined, with performance predictions regarding spin-off firms often being equivocal. This raises questions as to what generates positive performance for spin-off firms, with agency, transaction cost, and upper echelons theories offering differing, and sometimes conflicting, predictions. By integrating these theoretical perspectives, a model of managerial action and its performance implications is presented. The model examines how the formation of new top management, the establishment of managerial monitoring and incentives, and the severance effects from leaving the corporate structure affect strategic, financial, and institutional actions, and how these actions affect performance. The theory and hypotheses developed in this research are empirically tested on a sample of 176 corporate spin-offs completed by publicly traded firms between 1986 and 1997. Results for the action-based models indicate that background of the CEO or the TMT, as well as CEO options, had no effect on actions. CEO and TMT ownership had opposite effects on financial actions, with TMT ownership increasing the likelihood of strategic actions and CEO ownership increasing the likelihood of institutional actions. Ownership by the parent firm and monitoring by officers of the parent serving as board members had no effect on the likelihood of actions, although having a chairman of the board from the parent decreased the likelihood of strategic actions. Finally, severance effects had limited influence on the actions taken post spin-off. Results for the performance-based models indicate that strategic actions were negatively related to ROA, while financial and institutional actions are positively related to ROA and institutional actions are positively related to market performance. In general, inaction was related to lower Tobin's q, with the signs of the coefficients for the other performance models negative, but not significant. Finally, the spin-off firm's relationship with its corporate parent had limited effect on the link between actions and performance.

Today, gender quotation in the Board of Directors has become an important political question that is being discussed not only in Sweden but in several other countries as well. However, research on gender diversity and, for that matter, other forms of diversity in the corporate world is not something new. Diversity in Board of Directors and Top Management Teams and how it affects firm performance have been the topic of many researches the last two decades. Nevertheless, there are still many unanswered questions in this field that need to be answered. The purpose of this dissertation is to study how diversity in BoDs and TMTs affect firm performance. We used five different diversity variables, tenure, age, education, nationality and gender in our research and we tested them separately to see how they each affect firm performance. Because there is limited previous research conducted on diversity in Sweden and on Swedish firms, this dissertation attempts to fill that gap. This study is conducted on Swedish firms that are listed on large cap on Stockholm stock exchange. We used several ways to measure the five different diversity variables in both BoDs and TMTs. Firm performance was measured by using two well established measurements, Return on Equity and Return on Assets. We developed ten hypotheses to test how diversity affects firm performance; some diversity variables had positive effect on firm performance, while others had negative effect. The hypotheses are based on earlier research. There are mixed results from our study; seven out of ten hypotheses had to be rejected due to insignificant relationship between diversity and firm performance. Three hypotheses were rejected, even though they showed a significant relationship between diversity and firm performance, because the relationship was the opposite of our hypotheses. One reason for these results can be that there is low diversity in both BoDs and TMTs, and this makes it difficult to measure and establish a relationship between diversity and firm performance.

The transition for any executive into a new appointment is a challenge. This transition for the newly appointed Chief Information Officer (CIO) is especially challenging given the complexity and ambiguous nature of their role. Investment in information technology (IT) has steadily increased over the past twenty years and contributes to enabling business changes that drive organizational performance improvements. The role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) has evolved into an executive who holds significant responsibility for leading the organization in realizing these investment benefits. Therefore unsuccessful CIO transitions can negatively impact the extent to which the organization’s IT benefits are fully realized. This research has one objective: to increase our understanding of the process of taking charge for the newly appointed Chief Information Officer (CIO). This increased understanding contributes to academic research as well as provides insights to practicing CIOs that will increase their probability of successfully taking charge of a new appointment. The project explores this phenomenon in depth from both the CIO’s and non-IT executive’s (CxO) perspective through semi-structured interviews with 43 executives. Participants included twenty-one Chief Information Officers and twenty-two C-suite, non-IT executives. The study integrates concepts from role theory and leader socialization with CIO leadership challenges. Findings indicate that the newly appointed CIO experiences a mutual adjustment process when they take charge. This adjustment occurs within their role set; the IT leadership team, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and the other top management team members (CxOs). The data suggests that CIOs experience three overlapping phases of taking charge; Entry, Stabilization and Renewal. These phases result in confidence, credibility and legitimacy as a new leader in the organization. The data further reveals that the type of transition (Start-up, Turnaround, Realignment or Success-sustaining) encountered by the CIO is a significant influence on the taking charge process. CIO socialization is influenced heavily by their role set and the expectations within it. CIOs will encounter CxO peers with varying preferences on interaction style and focus. In addition the CxOs in the study identified three different views of CIOs that reinforce the role ambiguity for the newly appointed CIO. The study reveals that CIOs experience organizational socialization in two domains of leadership. These domains are supply-side and demand-side leadership. The data suggests that supply-side socialization occurs prior to demand-side socialization. These socialization outcomes are dependent on transition type. This research extends previous work done on CIO transitions by identifying phases, activities and outcomes. An additional contribution is the first empirical model of new CIO socialization. Leader socialization research is enhanced with the study of a non-CEO executive. This model contributes a deeper understanding of the mutual adjustment process experienced by a newly appointed CIO. Practicing CIOs can apply these findings in developing transition plans and actions for taking a new appointment. The CxO types and attitudes can inform the newly appointed CIO on customizing their relationship building approaches. Understanding that taking charge requires 2-3 years can lead to more realistic expectations of the executive. The findings of this study can lead CIOs to a higher probability of success in taking charge of a new appointment.

Due to various corporate scandals and failures, there has been a renewed interest on the role of boards in the performance of firms. This thesis examines the relationship between the key board characteristics and firm performance. Unlike most studies on boards which predominantly use only financial variables affecting governance, I take a different approach by combining them with non-financial variables. This combined set of variables is used for theoretical and empirical modelling. Based on the extant literature, I develop a conceptual framework and a set of hypotheses to examine the relationship between board characteristics and firm performance. Board characteristics considered in this research include board size, director ownership, CEO duality, gender diversity, educational qualification of board members and number of board meetings. Additionally, I use board size as a moderating variable to examine how the effect of other board characteristics is contingent on board size. Firm performance is measured by return on assets. I test my hypotheses on a longitudinal sample of 156 firms over a four year period from 2004 to 2007. My sample includes all firms listed on New Zealand stock exchange as on November 2007. Empirical analysis is undertaken using Generalised Least Squares analyses. The findings of the study show that board characteristics such as board size, CEO duality and gender diversity were positively related with firm performance, where as director ownership, board meetings and the number of board members with PhD level education was found to be negatively related. Board size was found to be moderating some of these relationships, indicating the critical role being played by board size in the design and role of corporate boards. The findings also provide partial evidence to different governance theories, further indicating the need for theoretical pluralism to gain insights into boards’ functioning. The study contributes to the understanding of board-performance link by examining both the traditional variables such as board size, CEO duality, and number of board meetings as well as other organisational attributes such as gender diversity and competence variables represented by women and PhD holders, respectively. The theoretical framework and the findings of my thesis are expected to stimulate scholars for further research to identify the contingency conditions upon which the board characteristics and firm performance may be dependent.

Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2012 / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) top management is responsible for the risk management in their company. In today‟s world, businesses are relying more and more heavily on IT and often this can be seen as a huge risk. As a potential risk factor and an integral part of any business, IT therefore falls under the portfolio of top management. However, there is a general perception, especially among dedicated IT professionals, that there is a gap between business, that is top management, and IT and that successful communication is not always achieved. The lack of successful communication between top management and IT role players could have a negative impact on a business‟ ability to operate fully. This study is therefore concerned with the investigation of how top management (the IT decision makers in a company) engage in the discourse of IT. It aims to identify whether a communication gap between business (top management) and IT truly does exist and, if so, why. The data for this study takes the form of recorded, semi-structured interviews with IT role-players and directors/managers who have IT as part of their portfolio, from ten SMEs in the greater Cape Town area. This study is undertaken in the framework of semantic discourse analysis, concentrating on two notions of coherence, that of van Dijk‟s (1985) model of macrostructures and Brown and Yule‟s (1983) notion of „discourse topic‟. This approach is used in order to analyse the transcribed interviews with both top management and IT role players in order to determine whether the perception of a communication gap between business (top management) and IT is true and if so, what the reasons for this communication gap are. The analysis of the transcriptions allows the researcher to confirm the perception that a communication gap does exist and to identify two possible reasons as to why this communication gap exists, firstly, that there seems to be a lack of communication between IT and top management and, secondly, that top management‟s interpretation of what IT means to their company differs from that of their IT role players. / AFRIKAANSE OPSMOMMING: In klein tot mediumgrootte ondernemings (KMOs) is topbestuur verantwoordelik vir die risikobestuur in hul maatskappy. In vandag se wêreld, maak besighede meer en meer staat op IT en dit kan dikwels beskou word as 'n groot risiko. As 'n potensiële risikofaktor en' n integrale deel van enige besigheid, val dit dus onder die portefeulje van die top bestuur. Daar is egter 'n algemene persepsie, veral onder toegewyde IT-profesionele, dat daar' n gaping tussen die besigheid, in ander woorde die topbestuur, en IT bestaan en dat suksesvolle kommunikasie nie altyd bereik word nie. Die gebrek aan suksesvolle kommunikasie tussen topbestuur en IT kan 'n negatiewe impak op' n onderneming se vermoë om ten volle te funksioneer he. Hierdie studie is dus gemoeid met die ondersoek van hoe topbestuur (die IT-besluitnemers in 'n maatskappy) betrokke raak in die diskoers met IT. Die doel is om vas te stel of 'n kommunikasie gaping tussen die besigheid (topbestuur) en IT werklik bestaan, en indien wel, waarom te identifiseer. Die data vir hierdie studie neem die vorm van aangetekende, semi-gestruktureerde onderhoude met rolspelers en direkteure / bestuurders wat IT as deel van hul portefeulje het in tien KMOs in die groter Kaapstad-gebied. Hierdie studie is onderneem met die raamwerk van`n semantiese diskoers-analise, en konsentreer op die twee begrippe van samehang, dié van Van Dyk (1985) se model van makrostrukture en Brown en Yule (1983) se idee van `n 'diskoers onderwerp'. Hierdie benadering word gebruik om die getranskribeerde onderhoude met beide topbestuur en IT-rolspelers te analiseer en ten einde te bepaal of die persepsie van 'n kommunikasie gaping tussen die besigheid (topbestuur) en IT-rolspelers waar is en indien wel, wat die redes vir hierdie kommunikasie gaping is. Die ontleding van die transkripsies stel die navorser in staat om die persepsie dat 'n kommunikasie gaping bestaan te bevestig en om twee moontlike redes daarvoor te identifeer, in die eerste plek dat dit lyk asof daar' n gebrek aan kommunikasie tussen IT-rolspelers en die topbestuur bestaan, en tweedens, dat die topbestuur se interpretasie van wat IT beteken vir hul maatskappy verskil van dié van hul IT-rolspelers.

This PhD thesis consists of three empirical papers. Each paper can be read independently. However, all three papers investigate different factors affecting the performance of firms involved in mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and initial public offerings (IPOs). A private firm seeking to become listed and who also wish to grow through acquisition can do so with an IPO followed by acquisitions or a reverse takeover (RT). In a RT, a private firm is acquired by a public firm, but the private firm controls the combined public entity after completion of the deal. Chapter 2, 'Post-acquisition performance when firms list and acquire simultaneously versus sequentially: Reverse takeover versus IPO-M&As', examines the differential performance of firms conducting an IPO prior to undertaking follow-on acquisitions (IPO-M&As) versus firms that combine the process of obtaining the listing and acquiring another firm by conducting a RT. I investigate how acquirers' choices affect their post-acquisition performances. In this paper, I also investigate the impact of board structure changes on firm performance in IPO-M&A and RT deals. This event study covers RTs and acquisition-motived IPOs listed on the London Stock Exchange during 1995-2012. Challenging the theoretical expectation that IPOs increase the likelihood of optimal exercise of acquisition options by reducing valuation uncertainty, my results show that an IPO does not alleviate the stock market underperformance of acquirers within 3 years post-acquisition. Private firms seem to self-select into different listing-and-acquisition routes depending on firm-specific characteristics and the board members keep the same level of control preference. However, the choice of listing-and-acquisition does not appear to significantly affect performance. I find no significant difference in the post-acquisition performance of firms undertaking IPO-M&As or RTs. Chapter 3, 'Post-acquisition performance of target firms: The impact of management turnover', investigates the efficiency of the takeover market and the impact of management turnover on target firm performance. Investigating separately the operating performance of targets and acquirers in U.K. domestic acquisitions during 2006-2014, I find that the post-acquisition peer-adjusted profits significantly improve in the unprofitable targets but do not change significantly in profitable targets. Both profitable and unprofitable targets experienced high management turnovers, but the improvement in profits does not appear to be driven by the management turnover. The reason of management turnovers is more complex than the acquisitions' market discipline function or resource-based management hypothesis. However, a complete turnover of top management in target firms seems to hurt the post-acquisition performance of acquirers, suggesting target management team may possess valuable information to facilitate the integration process. This study sheds light on the post-acquisition restructuring of target firms and their management teams, especially in private targets. Chapter 4, 'Identifying leaders among IPO firms: a content analysis of analyst coverage reports', investigates how analysts identify firms as a leader and whether leader firms go on to generate superior operating performance to non-leaders. Using a content analysis approach, I extract sentences including the keyword 'lead' from initial coverage reports and pick out sentences where the IPO firm is identified as either an 'industry leader' or 'partial leader'. I examine the textual content of initial coverage reports on U.S. IPOs during 1999-2012 and find that lead-underwriter analysts appear not to be more optimistic than non-lead-underwriters in their leadership identification of IPO firms, however, nor are they more accurate than non-lead-underwriters in identifying leader firms. I find that neither firms identified by analysts as industry leaders nor firms identified as having partial leadership advantages tend to generate superior peer-adjusted net sales or profit margins compared to non-leaders. The Global Settlement in 2003 significantly reduced the likelihood, frequency and intensity of partial leadership identification. Although there is no explicit regulation requirement on the text content in analyst reports, analysts have become more conservative in identifying a firm as a leader after the Global Settlement. This study helps investors to understand the incremental information of leadership identification in analyst reports, beyond the quantitative outputs such as stock recommendations.

Master Thesis in Business Administration Title:           Due Diligence in Cross-border M&As - Top management team´s human capital affecting speed of due diligence process Authors:       Jürgen Sabernik and Matti Salakka Tutor:          Tommaso Minola, Ph.D. Date:           2018-05-21 Key Terms:   Mergers & Acquisitions, Due Diligence, Speed, Cross-border, Human Capital, Top Management Team   Abstract Problem:       Globalization and market saturation are a constant influence for all the participating businesses in the markets. Therefore, companies of all various sizes are considering mergers & acquisitions to either consolidate the market, use it as a market growth opportunity or entry strategy into a new market or even country. Due to these multidimensional processes, many of the attempted M&As fail. Practitioners tend to focus only on financial or legal characteristics when considering to acquire and afterwards merge the target company, which results into failed M&A process. Accordingly, multifaceted phenomena such as M&As should not be only assessed on two dimensions, they should rather be evaluated as a whole with a dynamic due diligence process along the M&A. Purpose:     The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the speed of dynamic due diligence process in cross-border mergers and acquisitions and what effect the human capital of an organization’s top management has on it. Method:     For this thesis, we utilize a qualitative research based on a multiple case study approach. Therefore, we investigated four case companies within different industries in the Finnish context. The primary empirical data was collected through semi-structured interviews with guidance from a topic guide, in addition we also used company information such as annual reports or the company websites as secondary data. The derived statements are based on the findings, which were categorized and afterwards adopted as a basis for the analysis. Findings:       The findings of this thesis are that the human capital factors affect the speed of the due diligence process in cross-border mergers and acquisitions via four themes; (1) business environment, (2) market knowledge, (3) inter-organizational leadership and (4) individual skills. The themes can affect the speed directly, but more importantly through the interplay of different themes.  Conclusion:    In conjunction with various authors mentioned in this thesis, we also come to the conclusion that a dynamic due diligence process is contributional in order to grasp the multidimensionality of mergers & acquisitions. Additionally, the context where the individual M&A is happening is playing a major role within the evaluation process. Hence, top management team’s human capital has an impact on the speed of dynamic DD process in cross-border M&As via the four above mentioned themes.

The thesis aims to analyze the representation of women in the top management within companies in the Czech Republic and companies' approach towards gender diversity. Theoretical background is provided as an introduction to the topic. Terms leadership and leadership styles are defined. The thesis follows with gender leadership specifics and typical characteristics for the Czech Republic. The research part is based on the interviews with HR representatives conducted in five chosen companies. Typical managerial trajectory and gender diversity management are the key areas of the interviewed questions. The results picture a typical managerial trajectory with the emphasis on women. The thesis presents the companies' approach to the gender management and introduces activities which companies do in order to increase the number of women in their decision-making positions. Author's recommendations to the companies is included.