Top management team characteristics, global strategic change, and firm performance: The moderating role of organizational and environmental context

International business research has emphasized the organizational and environmental determinants of firm globalization. However, such an emphasis ignores the probable impact of a firm's top management team (TMT) on its propensity to "go global." Moreover, the upper echelon's literature assumes that the effect of TMT demographic characteristics on strategic outcomes is generally independent of the decision making context (i.e., something we refer to as a context-free assumption). But, because demographic effects are contingent upon uncertainty, and in so far as uncertainty is a function of a TMT's organizational and environmental context, we propose that context will moderate TMT demographic effects. Accordingly, this dissertation introduces an upper echelons argument into the dialogue on firm internationalization and also tests the context-free assumption. Specifically, we test (1) the main-effect of changes in TMT demographic characteristics on changes in a firm's global strategic posture, (2) the moderating impact of global strategic posture on the relationship between top team characteristics and firm performance, and (3) the moderating impact of organizational and environmental context on the relationship between change in demographics and change in global posture. In a sample of S&P 500 and mid-cap 300 firms, we find that average TMT tenure, TMT educational heterogeneity, and the percentage of non-US executives on the TMT are positively related to a firm's propensity to expand globally. With regard to organizational and environmental context, the impact of TMT educational background heterogeneity, functional background heterogeneity, and tenure heterogeneity (i.e., on both performance and change in global strategic posture) depends significantly on the context (i.e., the level of uncertainty) confronting the top management team. Moreover, at low levels of uncertainty functional background and tenure heterogeneity contribute positively to change in global posture and firm performance, while they contribute negatively to such strategic outcomes at high levels of uncertainty. The implications of our findings and opportunities for new research are also discussed.