Study on TMT Heterogeneity’s Effects on Corporate Performance from the Perspective of Leadership Structure

Abstract

Based on Upper Echelons theory, this article makes use of a sample of 130 companies that experienced CEO succession due to performance decline to investigate whether the TMT heterogeneity impact on corporate performance and how the leadership structure of corporation moderates the relationship between them. It is shown that TMT age heterogeneity has a U-shaped relationship with corporate performance; TMT tenure heterogeneity and TMT educational levels heterogeneity have inverted U-shaped relationship with corporate performance; while the leadership structure of corporation has a moderating effect on the relationship between TMT age heterogeneity, TMT tenure heterogeneity and corporate performance. The findings of this study would be helpful to cultivate and construct the entrepreneurial TMT, and to design corporate leadership structure.