engleski

UPPER ECHELON THEORY: A REVIEW AND FUTURE RESEARCH AGENDA

The overarching theme of the literature on upper echelon theory (UET) is to understand the impact that top management teams have on the performance of companies. In this article, the extant literature is used to provide an advanced understanding of UET as one of the most significant perspectives in strategic management (Hambrick and Mason, 1984). Additionally, efforts have been made to systematically review increasingly original and conceptual papers to help identify the gaps in the body of knowledge regarding prior empirical studies and to provide recommendations for future research. The aims of this paper are to define the most common critiques of UET, identify the gaps in previous studies, and provide recommendations for future studies according to the results of the analysis. The analysis includes more than fifty papers published over a 36-year period (1984 - 2020) in the field. To address the gap related to top management team heterogeneity, this article critically reviews prominent prior studies on upper echelon theory and top management team heterogeneity. The analysis indicated that the gaps are the results of employing unsuitable methodologies, omitting moderating variables, failing to utilize psychological variables as a group dynamic, and using only demographic proxies. Finally, the article suggests future research directions and develops a research agenda integrating previous research.

Heterogeneity, Top management team, Upper echelon theory

nije evidentirano