Unpacking Functional Experience Complementarities in Senior Leaders’ Influences on CSR Strategy: A CEO–Top Management Team Approach

Marko Reimer (), Sebastiaan Doorn () and Mariano L. M. Heyden ()
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Marko Reimer: WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management
Sebastiaan Doorn: University of Western Australia, UWA Business School
Mariano L. M. Heyden: Monash University

Journal of Business Ethics, 2018, vol. 151, issue 4, No 9, 977-995

Abstract: Abstract In this study, we examine the influence of senior leadership on firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR). We integrate upper echelons research that has investigated either the influence of the CEO or the top management team (TMT) on CSR. We contend that functional experience complementarity between CEOs and TMTs in formulating and implementing CSR strategy may underlie differentiated strategies in CSR. We find that when CEOs who have predominant experience in output functions are complemented by TMTs with a lower proportion of members who have experience in output functions, there is a pronounced effect on the community, product, and diversity dimensions of CSR. In turn, when output-oriented CEOs are complemented by output-oriented TMTs, we observe an effect on the employee relations dimension of CSR. Interestingly, we find no influence of CEO-TMT complementarity on the environment dimension of CSR. In general, our empirical results support the relevance of the interaction between CEOs and their TMTs in defining their firms’ CSR profile.

Keywords: CEOs; Corporate social responsibility; Functional background; Senior leadership; Top management teams; Upper echelons theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (31)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10551-017-3657-5

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