Understanding the Emergence and Development of Qualitative Collaboration within Top Management Teams with new CEOs: A Trajectory Analysis.

Abstract

How does the level of collaboration quality within TMTs with new CEOs develop over time? Research on temporal patterns of how qualitative collaboration forms over time is very scarce because rigorous research designs and process theory in this area are lacking. From existing literature, we deduce a taxonomy of three theoretical trajectories that describe prototypical pathways of the development of collaboration quality within TMTs with new CEOs: (1) Efficient Learning and Growing; (2) Ready Made Bed, and (3) (Temporary) Dissolution. Further, we empirically verify and enrich this taxonomy by examining naturally occurring patterns, which are found to display (disrupted) strengthening, or (disrupted) stabilizing of collaboration quality over time. For this, we use a sample of 14 TMTs with new CEOs whose evolution of collaboration quality was documented for the first seven months of the new CEO’s tenure. Our data allow us to enrich our taxonomy regarding the level of collaboration quality at the beginning of the new CEO’s tenure and further dynamics over time.