Imprinting effects of childhood resource-scarcity experience on CEO-TMT interface: Political and market resource strategies

Jianan Li and Eric W.K. Tsang

Journal of Business Research, 2025, vol. 189, issue C

Abstract: This study explores the impact of CEOs’ childhood experience with resource scarcity on their top management team (TMT) composition and subsequent resource allocation. Emerging research on CEOs’ early-life events has focused on their imprinting effects on firm market strategies; however, less is known about how these experiences influence non-market strategies or shape firm strategies through the TMT. Exploring the CEO-TMT interface can provide insights into how CEO imprinting affects their leadership teams, particularly in the domains of political and market activities. To address the literature gaps, this study proposes that CEOs’ childhood experience with resource scarcity affects the CEO-TMT interface in two ways: strategic pursuit of political resources and cautious investment in market resources. These CEOs tend to have more top managers with political backgrounds and fewer with technical backgrounds. Furthermore, institutional development and industry competition moderate imprinting dynamics. Institutional development reduces reliance on top managers with political backgrounds, while industry competition reinforces the preference for having fewer top managers with technical backgrounds. Using the historical context of the Great Famine in China (1959–61) and a sample of publicly listed firms from 2007 to 2017, we find support for our hypotheses.

Keywords: Imprinting theory; Life history theory; Childhood resource-scarcity; CEO-TMT interface; Political and market resource strategies; the Great Famine in China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296325000104
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:189:y:2025:i:c:s0148296325000104

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2025.115187

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside

More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().