A Literature Review on Upper Echelons Theory

Abstract

In this paper, it reviews research on the upper echelons theory. To be specific, I concentrate on the factors that might influence managers' corporate decisions, which are the formal education degree, major degree, socioeconomic backgrounds, gender, individual experiences, age and tenures. Previous literatures reveal that formal education degree, advantaged backgrounds have positive association with corporate decisions, while negative relationships were shown between age and tenure and corporate decisions. Individual experiences will be separated as divisional managers and specialist CEOs to explains the linkage with corporate decisions. I hope this article may provide some implications to researchers, corporate managers, capital market investors, regulators, and so on.