ENVIRONMENTAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT AND EXECUTIVE TEAM STRUCTURE

This research investigated the configurational relationship between executive team context and executive team structure as measured by team demographics. We hypothesized and found that multiple organizational ''clocks,'' each driven by different aspects of an executive team's environment, have distinct effects on inertia and change. The longer the period of stability in a team's environment, the less change in members, the greater the mean tenure, and the greater the homogeneity. Reorientations, environmental jolts, technological discontinuities, and CEO successions are each associated with increased team change and heterogeneity. Whereas periods of equilibrium are associated with low change and high homogeneity, organizations that survive dramatic environmental shifts have heterogeneous executive teams that display both stability and the capacity for change.