The Ecology of Organizational Demography: Managerial Tenure Distributions and Organizational Competition

Jesper B Sorensen

Industrial and Corporate Change, 1999, vol. 8, issue 4, 713-44

Abstract: This paper argues that turnover processes in top management teams create inter-organizational interdependencies. I argue that managerial capabilities are shaped by their experiences in a given competitive context; differences in managerial tenure therefore lead to differences in managerial capabilities. A comparison of the tenure distribution of a top management team with those of its competitors therefore captures the extent to which a firm relies on managerial capabilities similar to those of its competitors. Overlap in managerial capabilities will lead to greater competition for resources, since managers shape a firm's pattern of resource utilization. I hypothesize that organizational growth rates will decline to the extent that competitors are crowded around a firm's location in the tenure distribution. Analyses of growth in viewership among commercial television stations support this claim. Copyright 1999 by Oxford University Press.

Date: 1999
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