Top Management Teams

Scholarly interest in the firm’s top management is an important research topic given their influence on strategic decision-making and firm outcomes, as well as increased media attention and activist investor scrutiny of the firm’s executives. The past experiences, knowledge, and skills of the firm’s top management team (TMT) represent the stock of the firm’s strategic human capital, which, along with their social capital and cognitive perspectives, influences strategic decision-making. This chapter provides a brief overview of the current state of research on TMTs and addresses limitations of this research before proposing an agenda for future research. The intent is to suggest avenues of scholarly inquiry to better understand how the firm’s TMT, through its interactions, attributes, and behavior, influences strategic decision-making. In doing so, the chapter could serve to encourage future research that will provide practical insight on how companies and boards can have more effective executive teams.