Title
Sustainability in SMEs: Top management teams behavioral integration as source of innovativeness
Date Issued
21 October 2017
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Publisher(s)
MDPI
Abstract
Top management teams' (TMTs') behavioral integration has received extensive attention from strategic management scholars in recent years. To learn more about the consequences of this phenomenon at the team level, we explore the relationship between TMTs' behavioral integration with their innovativeness and sustainability orientation. To accomplish this, we surveyed 40 TMTs in Iranian small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) at two points in time. We ran a hierarchical multiple regression in order to test the hypotheses of the study. Building a theoretical model based on the Upper-Echelons framework, we found that the extent to which a TMT is behaviorally integrated is positively and significantly related to TMT innovativeness. Furthermore, our result reveals that a highly behaviorally integrated TMT is more likely to engage in sustainability-oriented actions. Hence, behaviorally integrated TMTs offer its team members an increased chance of being innovative and generating new ideas as compared to less behaviorally integrated TMTs. Finally, our results indicate that the generation of novel ideas is higher in teams with younger members, and that highly educated TMTs generate more innovative ideas in the workplace.
Volume
9
Issue
10
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Relaciones Industriales Sociología
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85032856794
Source
Sustainability (Switzerland)
Sources of information: Directorio de Producción Científica Scopus