Strategic Choices and TMT Task-Related Faultlines: Do CEO Characteristics Matter too?

Research on top management team (TMT) faultlines has conceptualized the CEO as an unremarkable actor within these teams. This paper breaks with this presumption and argues that CEO’s formal authority and responsibilities might give him/her a unique position within these social units. In particular, we argue that certain types of background characteristics of the CEO enable him/her to play an integrative role within these units, thereby potentially influencing how faultlines may impact specific strategic choices. Using a dataset of 737 investments made by a sample of American firms in 2010-2013, we find support for the main effect of team faultline strength and a moderation effect of CEO’s characteristics (breadth of sector experiences, overlapping experiences with team members). Implications for theory and practice are discussed.