Date of Award

8-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Management

Committee Chair/Advisor

Dr. Wayne Stewart

Committee Member

Dr. Matt Hersel

Committee Member

Dr. Joseph Harrison

Committee Member

Dr. Hongki Kim

Abstract

Corporate entrepreneurship enables more nimble, responsive, effective and efficient corporate response to increasingly demanding competitive conditions. To fill the gap in the literature concerning the role of CEO experiences on CE, this study, based on upper echelons and ambidexterity theory, examines the influence of CEO career variety on CE by classifying CEO industry and function experiences into four categories: Functional Orchestrators, Focused Experts, Industry Navigators, and Holistic Polymaths. Utilizing a dataset with 22,544 observations from the S&P 1500 index, spanning from 1992 to 2024, ANCOVA analyses are used to assess the impact of each CEO type on CE. The findings indicate that Focused Experts hinder CE, while Holistic Polymaths enhance CE. However, Industry Navigators do not show a significant impact compared to the baseline of Functional Orchestrators. Additionally, CEO duality amplifies Focused Experts' negative impact and Holistic Polymaths' positive impact on CE, but shows no evidence of effects for Industry Navigators. A complementary analysis explores how CEO career varieties influence prioritization across three dimensions of CE. It reveals that Focused Experts deprioritize strategic renewal, both Focused Experts and Industry Navigators deprioritize innovation, and Holistic Polymaths prioritize innovation. Complementary machine learning techniques revealed non-linear relationships and provided a better fitting model, indicating that all four types of CEO career variety contribute to CE, albeit with relatively smaller predictive power. The implications of these analyses are discussed. Overall, this research highlights the intricate relationship between CEO career paths and entrepreneurial strategy in large corporations, a relationship that abets theory development and practice.

Author ORCID Identifier

0000-0002-6792-1088

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