CEO tenure and company invention under differing levels of technological dynamism

Abstract

Following from research on firms' upper echelons, this article examines the previously unstudied issue of how technological dynamism moderates the relationship between a CEO's time in office and company inventive activities. We evaluate this relationship in the biopharmaceutical industry, a technology- and invention-intensive context. As would be expected from notions of a CEO life cycle, our results indicate a curvilinear, inverted U-shaped overall relationship between CEO tenure and invention. But technological dynamism shifts this curve in such a way that short-tenured CEOs engender more invention under highly dynamic technological environments, while long-tenured CEOs spur greater invention under more stable technologies. © Academy of Management Journal.