Prof. Gerard Sanders (Rice University)

Program

• Date: 17.06.2009
  Time: 17:15 - 18:45
  Location: Room 024, Ludwigstr. 28/RG

Experiential Effects on Strategic Preferences: The Case of the Chinese Corporate Upper Echelons

Firms facing similar institutional and competitive environments often pursue different strategies.  Naturally, some of this strategic heterogeneity is a function of varying resource and capability endowments.  However, firms' upper echelons (e.g., top management and board of directors) also possess varying experiences, which shape their views of the competitive landscape and are formative in their perceptions of attractive opportunities. The upper echelon is a repository of multiple parties' experience sets. Firms directed by upper echelons possessing more diverse experience sets should manifest different strategic preferences in the face of global complexity. In this study, we explore how the educational and professional experiences of the corporate elite of large Chinese public firms influence these firms' strategic direction through resource allocations and other strategic commitments. Specifically, we focus on the (a) international education, (b) foreign assignment work experiences, and (c) work experiences and forms of embeddedness within the Chinese socio-political system as antecedents of the likelihood of strategic commitments.