| Globalization brought about by the complexity, which leaded the emergence of the"weak" scenarios, it would result in new challenge to the organization on how toimplement strategic choice and implementation. Enterprise must change from the loneheroes to the team leadership model, and reply the environment change play its valuethrough the team decision. Top Management Team (TMT) is responsible for organizationand coordination of the entire enterprise. It decided the strain capacity anddecision-making ability of enterprises in market competition, which thus decided thedevelopment of enterprise and related between the rise and fall of enterprise. As animportant strategic resource of enterprises and core competency, outstanding TMT willform the team cooperation effect. It will help enterprise to play the decision-making andorganizational coordination ability of TMT, and improve decision quality.The researches on the compositional pattern of TMT have been hot topics of theupper echelons theory, many were about the relationship research between it andorganizational outcomes. The reason why decision effectiveness of TMT was the mostimportant was because decision-making process of TMT was complex and delicateprocess. It was usually affected by different interest groups mutually restricted andinteracted each other. A high-efficient TMT could not only satisfy with high-efficientdecision of a certain decision, but also team members should experience the satisfactionand recognition during decision-making and implementing, and form the harmonious andtrustful relations. It will be an important prerequisite that ensure team long-term effectivedecision-making and sustainable development. Therefore, it is a realistic significance todiscuss the influence between the demographic background characteristics andheterogeneity of TMTS, and decision effectiveness.To ensure the more stable relationship between TMT characteristics andorganizational outcomes, mediating roles of team process was widely noted. The teamprocess revealed how to raise efficiency, improve performance, reduce cost and makebetter decision. When TMT composition was different, it was necessary to integrate teamstatus and composition. Only when the top management of resources, informationsharing and decision making were realized, in other words, only when TMT Behavior was integrated, the abilities to make decisions and coordination were the most.Competitive power was enhanced, resulting in the satisfactory decision effectiveness.The aim of this study was to discuss different effects from background andheterogeneity characteristics of TMT on decision effectiveness, as well as the decisioneffectiveness impacts of mediated variable through the behavioral integration ofbackground and heterogeneity characteristics of TMT. The background characteristicsincluded average age, tenure, the average educational level and team size, andheterogeneity characteristics included age heterogeneity, tenure heterogeneity,educational degree heterogeneity, educational specialization heterogeneity, functionalbackground heterogeneity. The results will help to integrate the team advantagesaccording to the system environment and cultural environment of our country so as toimprove the decision effectiveness of the team and provide theoretical support andpractical strategy. Research can be divided into four aspects including:1. To discuss theeffects of background and heterogeneity characteristics of TMT on decision effectiveness.2. To discuss effects on the behavioral integration of background and heterogeneitycharacteristics of TMT. Behavioral integration is a new perspective in academic field,which is named as the key to open black box of the upper echelon theory. In this study,connotation and dimensionality of behavioral integration were defined.3. To discuss theeffects from behavioral integration of TMT on decision effectiveness. There were a fewliteratures on it. This paper tentatively studied the relationship including three factors:behavioral integration of the team cooperation, effective communication anddecision-making participation.4. To discuss the intermediate effect of behavioralintegration. With the gradual maturity of upper echelons theory, scholars added themediate variable between TMT characteristics and results so as to uncover mysteries ofblack box. This paper discussed the intermediate effects of behavioral integration onpopulation characteristics, heterogeneity characteristics of TMT and decisioneffectiveness.The questionnaire was confirmed through literature analysis and depth interview.Small and medium-sized enterprises in Liaoning province were selected as sample,questionnaire survey was done. The efficient questionnaires from391top managers of115teams were taken back. In this study, the variables designed were measured using the mature scale. The individual items of behavioral integration were changed, and the itemand exploratory factor were analyzed. The validity and reliability of variable in thequestionnaire were analyzed through SPSS19.0and AMOS17.0statistical software. Toensure data from individual level to aggregate on team level, ICC and Rwg were used toinspect group data consistency. Finally, the effects from composition characteristics ofTMT on decision effectiveness as well as intermediate effect of behavioral integrationbetween composition characteristics and decision effectiveness were analyzed andverified through multiple regression analysis.Logical relationships of TMT characteristics, behavioral integration as well asdecision effectiveness were found according to this study. TMT characteristics wereimportant variables, which decided the decision effectiveness. Different characteristicsaffected the decision effectiveness in various degrees. Average age, heterogeneities ofacademic education and functional background negatively affected on the decisioneffectiveness, but average education level positively affected on the decisioneffectiveness. The reason why TMT possessing the reasonable distribution and structurewas the objective prerequisite because the satisfied decision effectiveness obtaineddepended on potency of the team according to our research. When TMT was constructed,it should considered the potential and complementary effects of team characteristics,which included age and professional speciality et al. Particularly, TMT possessing suchcharacteristics as the younger, higher education level lower education heterogeneity aswell as the similar professional background exhibited much larger scale. Such TMTcould play the complementary effect of team and help to get the satisfied decisioneffectiveness. According to the upper echelons theory, thoughts and cognitive ability ofTMT members were affected by their background and heterogeneous characters, andthen affected their decision-making behavior and effectiveness. However, it was limited.To reply the hyper competitive environment and the fast change outer market, TMT musteffectively deal with the inner and outer information, and quickly integrate source andbehave, it would help to promote the decision-making ability of organization. Therefore,TMT characteristics might affect the decision effectiveness through behavioralintegration. TMT background character indirectly affected the decision effectiveness andplayed its role through behavioral integration according to our research. Behavioral integration played its partial mediated role between heterogeneity characteristics of TMTand decision effectiveness. The influence was notable and positive.The studies on TMT characteristics and decision effectiveness were static, butstrategic decision was dynamic. To open the black box of characteristic and result,behavioral integration was the key variable. Behavioral integration of TMT was alearning process inside the interactive team. Through this process, TMT members fullyarouse the cognitive resources, which scattered inner and outer environment. It wouldensure that different knowledges and opinions of TMT could be fully fused. Every teammember could cooperate with each other and particate in decision-making andimplementing. Only TMT members communicated effectively and sufficientcoordination, theris views could be expressed during decision-making. The mostsatisfying decision-making could be lay down. It would help to successfully implementthe decision-making.Furthermore, TMT that possessed lower average age and higher average educationlevel helped to promote behavioral integration of team. It would be the most importantprerequisite that TMT could realized the overall team effectiveness (1+1>2). The reasonwhy the team promoted behavioral integration level was not due to multiple resources ofheterogeneity characteristics of TMT. Heterogeneities of education and functionalbackground negatively affected behavioral integration, major because heterogeneities ofeducation and functional background were related to work. High heterogeneity wouldreduce work efficiency and abate the quality and quantity of information communication,resulting in high team conflict and low interactive communication. It might be relatedwith Chinese traditional culture. The manager in Chinese enterprise paid more attentionto the “circle culture”, and the team paid more attention to the unified goal and behaviormodel, not but the isolated “personal hero”. The inside and outside boundaries of teamwere obviously divided. The internal and external team cognition reduced the ability ofTMT resource integration, which could not reach the strategic commitment agreement. |
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