El Análisis Crítico del Discurso: Teun A. Van Dijk

Having laid the theoretical foundation for the prepositions that tie Upper Echelons to International Market Selection, it is now important to select which aspects will be studied and why, in order to construct a model that accurately translates this relationship.

In line with Upper Echelons’ theory, this investigation studies the dynamics of the CEO and the Top Management Team as a unit, implying that firms’ dominant coalitions are prominent determinants of firm outcomes, more than economic or other environmental and contextual factors, and play a pivotal role in shaping strategic decision (Hambrick and Mason 1984). Being so, the meaningful unit of analysis for the study is the Top Management Team as a group, as strong correlations between the team and firm outcomes have been thoroughly established (Carpenter, Geletkanycz et al.

2004). Although for this case, dully accounting for the power discrepancies between the group and CEO (or equivalent). Modern day leadership is a shared activity and the decision making processes are usually shared between the firms’ leading group, the dominant coalition (Cyert and March 1963). At the organizational level the CEO shares power and tasks with other top team members and so, studying the group as a whole, shall provide more accurate results (Hambrick and Mason 1984). Nonetheless, the CEO, depending on its degree of managerial discretion, can have significant influence in the TMT group dynamics, by establishing how the team interacts or by exerting staffing tasks of team selection, for example (Hambrick and Finkelstein 1987). Furthermore, as the ultimate decision taker, the CEO sometimes holds disproportionate influence in the group, and averaging its traits with the rest of the top team might prove misguiding (Hambrick 2007). This influence unevenness seems to aggravate for smaller TMT groups and therefore team size must be controlled (Jackson 1992). Also, the CEO’s personality can shape the TMT group processes (Peterson, Smith et al. 2003).

When targeting the TMT as a unit of analysis it is of primordial importance to evaluate the team’s behavioral integration. Behavioral integration impacts on how the TMT acts as a decision-making team, measuring its wholeness and unity (Hambrick 2007). It translates the level of information sharing, collaborative behavior and joint

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decision making, which are of extreme importance in the search for different and appropriate solutions (Lubatkin, Simsek et al. 2006), especially in cases laded with uncertainty and ambiguity, as is the case of internationalization processes. Furthermore, behavioral integration is of special relevance to validate the TMT as a meaningful unit of analysis (Hambrick 2007). Top Management Teams with low behavioral integration scores represent highly fragmented teams with little to none collective interaction between its members. In that case, studying the team as a whole will prove of little significance as outcomes will not depend on team efforts, but are rather a result of an array of singular individual efforts (Hambrick 2007).

When evaluating the core values and assumptions of the TMT which affect decision making processes, there is a need to understand the underlying cognitive mechanisms. These traits can be measured directly, through the evaluation of their psychographic characteristics responsible for said processes, or indirectly, through demographic indicators which are good proxies for those cognitive features and behaviors (Hambrick and Mason 1984). Psychographic traits, although more accurate and precise, are sometimes not convenient to measurement or amenable to direct measurement (Lawrence 1997). The extensive psychological testing they require could also damper the managers willingness to cooperate with the study. That being the case, and to facilitate the model applicability and increase its practical usefulness, the Top Management Teams shall be studied by their averaged demographic traits as a group.

Inversely, the CEO, whose personality can exert a significant influence in the TMT group dynamic and can influence dominantly executive strategic decisions (Peterson, Smith et al. 2003), such as international market selection, shall be studied through its psychographic variables.

Regarding the team, tenure of internationalization, international experience, previous functional track, educational level, age, gender and heterogeneity shall be considered. Tenure of internationalization stands for the number of internationalization processes a team has managed. This variable might affect market selection method as the greater the experience of the team in managing this type of processes, the more established routine information sources, the more set habits and more reliance on past experience (Finkelstein, Hambrick et al. 1996) which might lead the team into

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preferring one method intuitively over another. Also the team’s international experience, or number of years they spent abroad, is of significant value to the model (Adler and Kwon 2002). Time abroad means a greater network of international contacts and access to different information sources which might tip the team when selecting a market. Team’s functional track is also of significance as the management members play their role influenced by their past experiences (Finkelstein 1992). The degree of complexity and informational level of the selection method chosen might be connected with this variable. For the same reasons educational level, since it is an indicator of a manager’s skill base and cognitive preference (Hambrick and Mason 1984), might have an important influence in the TMT/IMS relationship. Age is correlated with status quo maintenance, aversion to risk and ability to integrate new information (Hambrick and Mason 1984) and due to the difference in the risk profile and information processing skills required for the different international market selection methods, it becomes of pivotal importance to incorporate this variable in the model. Finally, regarding the team’s demographic variables, heterogeneity shall be studied in the traits of gender, age, educational level and functional background. The greater the degree of heterogeneity the greater the debate, the span of creative and available solutions, the greater the risk taking propensity and the broader the array of information sources used (Bantel and Jackson 1989). Also, team heterogeneity provides a more ample social network (Adler and Kwon 2002), which can influence towards the market selection method chosen, and is also correlated to firms’ degree of internationalization (Sambharya 1996).

Following the same line of thought expressed earlier, now applied to the CEO as the unit of analysis, the CEO network degree of internationalization, or in other words, the number of foreign contacts in the CEO’s social network, might have a definitive influence on the method chosen by the team, through the CEO’s influence, as the tendency for some market selection methods might be favored by the richness of one’s social network. Also, the proximity of the CEO with the market might have an influence by diminishing the psychological gap between the firm’s home country and the targeted one (Brewer 2007). CEO risk tolerance and tolerance for ambiguity might influence the market selection decision as different selection methods have different risk profiles associated, and in turn, the CEO as the ultimate decider, might favor one in detriment of others according to its own tolerance. Proactivity translates as the desire to act in order

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to answer future situations and threats and is normally associated with persons which are averse to the status quo (Lumpkin and Erdogan 1999). This characteristic might have an influence on how the CEO desires to act when facing competitors and how conservative he desires to be in his market selection method. CEO’s with high Core Self Esteem have themselves in high regard and seem to think their insights are of significant importance, and therefore do not feel the need to discuss strategic situations, analyze data or search for alternatives (Hiller and Hambrick 2005). Also they seem to act more on instinct and trial and error processes, engaging in relatively fast decision making (Hiller and Hambrick 2005). This could affect the CEO influence in the team and, in turn, the selection method by favoring less informationally complex and less rational methods.

Contextual variables such as organizational size and age or industry sector might also have an influence in the selection method, by influencing the managers’ degree of discretion (Hambrick and Finkelstein 1987). The higher the degree of discretion managers’ possess, the more their choices will show in firm outcomes (Hambrick and Finkelstein 1987). Organizational size, financial or human capital wise, is connected with firm resources, the myriad of information sources available, complexity of organizational structure or the firm’s research proficiency for example (Damanpour 1992). That being the case, firms with different sizes might favor different resource consuming selection methods, with different levels of information processing required, according to their structure. Also, organizational age is connected with established procedures and learning inertia (Levinthal 1991), in which firms’ might be averse to experimenting more innovative solutions and exhibit high preference towards one method, disfavoring others.

Industry sector might also introduce contextual heterogeneity through the degree of discretion it allows the managers (through the degree of regulation or industry growth and opportunities (Hambrick and Finkelstein 1987)) or through its degree of internationalization, or number of international enterprises in that sector. This in turn could have an influence on market selection.

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