Impact of CEO Succession in Japanese Companies: A Coevolutionary Perspective

Tomoaki Sakano and Arie Y. Lewin
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Tomoaki Sakano: School of Commerce, Waseda University, 1-104 Totsuka-machi, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 169-8050, Japan
Arie Y. Lewin: The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, Box 90120, Durham, NC 27708-0120

Organization Science, 1999, vol. 10, issue 5, 654-671

Abstract: In this paper, we set out to investigate whether strategic leadership matters at a moment in the life cycle of the firm when a change is made in the top leadership. By far, most of the conceptual and empirical literature on the consequences of CEO succession involves United States companies. Therefore, in this paper, we set out to investigate the impact of CEO succession on strategic and organizational changes in Japanese companies.The empirical study consisted of a matched control group design involving 81 Japanese companies experiencing a CEO succession event and 81 companies with continuity of their CEO leadership. The results of the study can be summarized as follows. Overall CEO succession was not associated with radical strategic and organization changes. Japanese companies did engage in evolutionary organization and strategic adaptations during the five year period of the study but independent of CEO succession. The governance structure moderates organization changes (independent of CEO succession) in particular when the firm was affiliated with a main bank and the firm was experiencing severe financial pressure.

Keywords: CEO Succession; Coevolution; Strategy Changes; Organization Restructurings; Governance Structure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1999
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:10:y:1999:i:5:p:654-671

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