EVALUATING RESEARCH PAPERS : Relational Demography, Communication and Cognitive Differences Among Top Managers Introduction The authors

Xin Liang and Joseph Picken reason in Relational Demography, Communication and Cognitive Differences Among Top Managers are to attempt to verify the relationship between the demographic difference and cognitive difference among top managers and examine how such a relationship is affected by the communication among top managers. The Authors prove that by using hypothesized that there is a positive relationship between demographic deviation and cognitive deviation of a focal manager on a TMT, and that such a relationship is mediated by the degree of communication that the focal manager has with other team members on the TMT. In order to enhance the confidance level of the data which collect from hypotheses authors using Structural Equation Modeling techniques these hypotheses were tested based on a sample of 348 top managers that consist of 28 top management teams. In Conclution Authors mention that this is the first study that uses relational demography to examine the influence of tenure difference on cognitive difference among members of a top management team and to expose a mediating role played by communication frequency. The Authors agree that there are limitation in this reaserch and the authors hope that future researchers can improve this research by addressing the limitations of this study. The authors encourage future researchers to explore the contingencies that differentiate the direct and indirect effects of demographics on the outcomes of teamwork. Particularly, using behavioral variables such as communication to conceptualize the process may overshadow the content and the meaning of these behaviors by screening out some context specific antecedents of the effectiveness of decision making. Using more closely related decision-making group intervening variables, like debate (Simons et al., 1999) or consensus seeking (Knight et al., 1999), might be helpful in gaining insights into the dynamic process of top management teamwork.

Comments

After go through the research i found that at the beinging stage authors not provide a clear notion of the problem and the purpose of the research, authors just higlight based on the pass research history which never been study deeply regarding the relationships between demograpyh and decision making among the top management (confusing). Based on the findding Authors highly support that the relationship between the demographic (i.e. tenure, functional background, etc.) difference and cognitive difference among top managers and examine will affect the communication among top managers and i agree the statement which highlight by authors. Authors also highlight that during the pass regarded as among the first to proclaim top managers matter to organizational performance but did not systematically propose a methodology to study top managers. After go through the reasearch done by the authors found that authors had been study throug alot of research had been done by other researcher found that there alot of missing data( not completed statement) among the researcher. Below are the example: Hambrick and Mason (1984) argued that most cognitive and social characteristics of top managers, which directly influence the decision-making of top managers, could be studied by using the observable characteristics of managers as their proxies. Following Pfeffer (1985), Hambrick and Mason (1984) especially proposed that the demographic characteristics of top managers, such as age, functional backgrounds, and tenure, would be reliable proxies for invisible social and cognitive characteristics of top managers such as attention and value. Hambrick and Mason (1984) published their seminal paper that introduced the upper echelons perspective in strategic management, research on top managers in the field of strategic management has flourished, making the upper echelons perspective one of the most popular theoretical perspectives in the field of strategic management. At its tenet, the upper echelons perspective argues that organizational outcomes, such as performance and innovation, are reflective of the characteristics of dominant coalition in charge of the organizations, i.e. the top managers. While this perspective of managers matter has been widely accepted, the popularity of the upper echelons perspective resides, perhaps, not so much in its theoretical angle to studying organizations as in its appealing methodology. An earlier study conducted by Dearborn and Simon (1958) found that executives demonstrate selective perception that appears to be functionally biased. Dearborn and Simons study is

widely regarded as a confirmation of the premise of demographics-cognition connection. However, 30 years later, in a replication study of Dearborn and Simons (1958) research, Walsh (1988) failed to find similar evidence of selective perception attributable to functional backgrounds of managers. Regarding the application of the assumption in empirical studies, Finkelstein and Hambrick (1996, p.156) acknowledged that the research findings on direct relationships between a popular team-level demographic proxy in a top management team, demographic heterogeneity, or the degree of diversity in the backgrounds of a top management team, and firm performance are unlikely to be robust. Some scholars have tried to reconcile the inconsistency in the results from studies intended to validate the assumption by examining the issues associated with different research designs in different studies (i.e. Waller et al., 1995; Beyer et al., 1997). However, their efforts have not generated further supports for the premise. Meanwhile, the inconsistency in the results collected from the application of the premise has bewildered scholars and has drawn some serious criticism. Priem et al. (1999), for example, pointed out that using demographics as proxies for cognitive characteristics of top managers emphasizes: . measurement reliability over construct validity . prediction over explanation; and . description over prescription. Because of these imbalances in emphasis, the body of literature solely built upon the demographic-cognition relationship is likely to suffer weak or uninterpretable findings, unexplained phenomena, and unusable prescriptions (Priem et al., 1999, p. 938). However i fully agree the statement from (Lawrence, 1997) and authors whics suggested that researchers examine the intervening constructs between the demographic and cognition connection, such as TMT interaction, to open the black box of the process through which TMT demographics enact TMT cognitions influences on organizations. This study was specifically designed to advance research on the demographics of top managers following this suggestion. In the research authors attempt to: . directly examine the TMT demographics cognition relationship with a hope to generate additional evidence for validating this assumed relationship; to achieve this goal, we used a new approach, the relational approach, to study the demographics of top managers; and shed some light on the black box of top management demography by exploring the effects of a likely intervening construct, communication among managers of a TMT, so that we can gain more insights on the process of how TMT demographics influences cognition.

In sum, we try to investigate the following two related questions: RQ1. Do demographically different managers in a management team indeed have different perceptions over critical organizational issues? RQ2. If they do, will the perceptual differences resulting from the demographic differences be affected by the frequency of communication among managers on a TMT? Pass studies allmost all reasearch are use categorical and compositional approach to study relation betwen communication and demography. This is 1st study adopts a relational approach to investigating the research questions. Tsui and Gutek (1999) have classified the approaches to organizational demography research into three types: (1) the categorical approach; (2) the compositional approach; and (3) the relational approach. Support Tool and Approach Category Approach The categorical approach analysis at the individual level and is appropriate for discovering the effects of demographic characteristics on an individuals behaviors In the reserch authors use relational approach as a main approach. I personnel agree this appoach is valid to use in this research this is due to relational demography approach, refers to how an individuals demographic characteristics interact with those of others in the group. Tsui and OReilly (1989, p. 403) defined the term relational demography as the comparative demographic characteristics of members of dyads or groups who are in a position to engage in regular interactions.

The compositional approach

On group-level analysis; it is concerned with how demographic compositions (e.g. gender composition, racial composition) of groups impact the structural property (e.g. centralization of power) or performance outcomes (e.g. efficacy, flexibility, etc.) of social groups. Relational demography approach The level of analysis in the relational demography approach may be somewhat confusing: the central constructs in the relational demography approach are conceptualized inter-personally with a social group as a base, but they are operationally at the individual level using comparative measures. Two types of measure First comparative measures are calculated based upon the differences between the demographic characteristics of an individual and those of other members. Thus, comparative measures difference from absolute individual level measures in that comparable measures incorporate the information of the characteristics of both an individual and those of other members, while absolute measures include only the characteristics of a target individual. This is an advantage of using comparative measures to study teams, because some demographic characteristics are salient only in a certain demographic context that an individual is attached to (for example, the salience of age for a senior in a kinder garden as opposed to a nursing home). The presence of others will make one more aware of self. Hence, a relational approach using comparative measures is more likely to show the influences of difference imposed by a team environment on individual cognition and behaviors. In addition, compared with another approach, the compositional approach, relational demography approach is more accurate in elucidating causality by matching differences in the inputs and in the outputs of teamwork. If both the input and outcome constructs of teamwork are operationally with comparative measures, the differences in outcome characteristics among group members (i.e. perceptual difference between an individual manager and the rest of team in a top management team) will be more directly attributable to the differences in input characteristics of group members (i.e. the functional background difference between the individual member and the rest of team in the top management team).

Conclusion

Almost all past studies in the literature found that most of the literature reviewed adopted the categorical approach, which operational demographic characteristics of managers with absolute, individual level measures (e.g. real age of a manager). When applying the assumption however, most studies followed the second approach, the compositional approach, which conceptualizes demographics as distributive group characteristics and operationalizes group demographic characteristic as demographic composite, such as group diversity/heterogeneity, at the team level. Unlike most of the previous research, authors approach of investigation falls into the third category in Tsui and Guteks (1999) classification, the relational approach. Hypotheses The Authors generated hypotheses based on the FIVE focal areas: 1) Tenure deviation of a top manager 2) Tenure deviation and intra-TMT communication 3) Functional background and cognition. 4) Functional background deviation and communication 5) Communication and perceptual difference There are total 6 hypotheses had been generated to validate the degree of relationship/ impact verify relationship between the demographic (i.e. tenure, functional background, etc.) difference and cognitive difference among top managers and examine how such a relationship is affected by the communication among top managers. Tenure deviation of a top manager Tenure deviation of a top manager may be related to the cognitive deviation of a top manager due to several reasons. Managers with different organizational tenures entered their organization at different times. Because they started their careers at different stages in their organizations life cycle, they may go though different socialization processes such as training and promotion processes, and may experience different organizational situations such as growth, decline, and crisis (Chattopadhyay et al., 1999). These organizational and situational differences can leave marks on managers understanding of organizational life and expectations for their organizations. They are believed to cultivate different risk-taking tendencies in these managers decision-making (Tripsas and Gavetti, 2000). In sum, managers different in tenure will have different mental models and different perceptions over organizational issues. Thus,

H1. The tenure deviation of a manager on a top management team is positively related to the cognitive deviation of the manager on the top management team. Tenure deviation and intra-TMT communication Communication theory and social identity theory have supported the idea that members with similar backgrounds in a social group seem to have a stronger bond than members with dissimilar backgrounds (Tijfel et al., 1971; Tijfel, 1982). From a communication perspective, the employees of most organizations develop a unique common language that facilitates communication regarding work-related issues (Allen and Cohen, 1969; March and Simon, 1958; Williamson, 1975; Zenger and Lawrence, 1989). H2. The tenure deviation of a manager on a top management team is negatively related to the managers communication frequency within the top management team. Functional background and cognition The belief structure of such a manager is likely to be affected by the managers functional roles, responsibilities, and the idiosyncratic information and terms the manager receives in his or her routine practice (Dearborn and Simon, 1958; Lawrence, 1997). This function-driven belief of managers may be further reinforced by the reward systems set by organizations and the expectation of their peers. It is widely held that managers with long-term experience in certain functional areas are more likely to think and perceive things differently than managers with significant experiences in different functional areas (Walsh, 1995; Waller et al., 1995). Likewise, the greater the number of managers on a TMT whose major functional areas are different from the functional area of a focal manager, the greater the cognitive difference can be expected to exist between the focal manager and the other managers on the same TMT. H3. The functional background deviation of a manager on a top management Functional background deviation and communication According to social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954), human beings have an innate tendency to evaluate themselves by comparing their qualities, such as opinions, abilities and backgrounds, with those of others. Festinger contended that the result of comparison will generate a feeling of similarity or difference to other human beings. This feeling is said to lead to the attractiveness to a target person. H4a. The functional deviation of a manager on a top management team is

negatively related to the communication frequency of the manager within the top management team. A manager may value the communication with functionally different managers more for the sake of gaining new insights. Of course, greater degrees of learning costs will incur and have to be absorbed in order for managers with different functional backgrounds to communicate (Granovetter, 1973). H4b. The functional deviation of a manager on a top management team is positively related to the communication frequency of the manager within the top management team. Communication and perceptual difference Communication among group members plays a major role in integrating group members into a cohesive social group (Shaw, 1981). Intra-team communications can increase information sharing (Tushman, 1978), remove team member confusion by clarifying roles and responsibilities (Stewart and Barrick, 2000), contribute to building consensus on high-quality decisions (Lott and Lott, 1961), and stimulate the generation of innovative ideas (Shaw, 1981). The greater the amount of communication occurring during a teamwork process, the greater the likelihood that cognitive differences among team members will be reduced (Alexander, 1979). Therefore, H5. The communication frequency of a manager with other team members on a TMT is negatively related to the cognitive deviation of the manager. Putting all of the hypotheses related to communication frequency together, one can expect that a managers communication frequency with other members on a TMT intervenes the influence of the managers demographic deviations on the cognitive deviation of the manager. Demographic deviations reduce communication frequency, which in turn, reduces the cognitive deviation of a manager on a TMT. That is,

H6. The communication frequency of a manager with other managers on a top management team mediates the relationship between the demographic deviations (tenure and functional background) and cognitive deviation of the manager on the

TMT. Apporach Comparison In comparison, compositional research aggregates the differences among individual members on a team into composite indicators for both dependent variables and independent variables, while developing arguments based on the assumption that the aggregated differences in the dependent/output variables result from the individual differences in the independent/input variables. Unfortunately, this assumption cannot be made with group level analysis, because methodologically speaking, group level composite measures cannot relates exactly the differences in outputs to differences in inputs. For example, when a composite measure shows that a great deal of difference exists among members evaluations of firm performance on a TMT, such difference may result from the perceptual differences between demographically similar members, as well as from that of demographically dissimilar members. Therefore, due to the nature of composite measures of difference, it is impossible to ultimately locate the sources of difference when analyses are conducted at the group level because only the aggregated perceptual differences within a group are measured. By connecting individual-level demographic inputs with group-level outputs, the, relational demography approach plays a critical role in complementing the other two approaches in studying organizational demographics. Its bridging role is particularly evident and valuable when the intervening constructs of team process are included. For instance, OReilly et al. (1989) found that at the group level, team age homogeneity, or to what extent team members are different in age, affected the overall member turnover rate in a team. Further, they used the relational demography approach to show that an individual team members social integration affected the individuals tendency to exit the team. This second finding in the same study reinforced the conclusion of the first finding by showing that turnovers at the group level indeed resulted from the micro disintegration of individual members during teamwork. Based on the review, authors develop hypotheses that predict the relationships among these constructs of interests in answering the two research questions. Next, authors describe methodology in testing these hypotheses and present the results of testing.

Based on each managers evaluations of firm performance and environmental uncertainty, cognitive deviation of a manager is also calculated using Euclidian Distance measure:

Where Ti represents a managers perception along the ith item in performance measure or environmental uncertainty measure. Tj represents the perception of the same performance item or environmental uncertainty item of the managers on a TMT of size n. Results Final sample consists of 28 top management teams with 348 executives after missing values were excluded. The 28 organizations were located in 14 SIC 4-digit level industries. Before Authors moved on to test the hypotheses, authors conducted exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to check the reliability and validity of our measures. Factor analyses were conducted on both measures of cognitive deviation. The results show that, when items of two measures were put in the same factor analysis, they loaded distinctively on two constructs that were correspondent with our expectation. Only two Eigen values were greater than 1. When the items of two cognitive measures were analyzed separately, a one-factor model explained 60 percent of variance in both models. The Cronbachs Alpha for the performance measure was 0.86 and it was 0.62 for the environmental uncertainty measure. Results of confirmatory analysis using LISREL verified that all items were significantly associated with the latent constructs they are supposed to represent. Based on these results, we concluded that our measures of performance and environmental uncertainty have achieved acceptable levels of validity and reliability and can be used for conducting further analyses.

Table I presents the means, standard deviations and correlation coefficients of the final variables. As can be seen in the table, all six perceived performance items are highly correlated (p, 0.001). Three items of perceived environmental uncertainty are significantly correlated as well. In addition, the two measures of differences in tenure, firm tenure and position tenure, are highly correlated too r 0:53; p , 0.001). Other noteworthy significant correlation coefficients include the ones between some cognitive deviation in environmental uncertainty variables and cognitive deviation in performance indicators ( p , 0.01), and the coefficients between communication intensity and the two dimensions of cognitive deviation with respect to performance evaluation. All of these significant correlation coefficients are in the expected direction. Next, employed Structural Equation Modeling to test the hypotheses. Structural Equation Modeling allows researcher to test the hypothesized direct, indirect and mediated relationships all at once. It integrates a measurement model and a causal model that contains multi-dimensional latent constructs ( Joreskog and Sorbom, 1996). The hypotheses were tested with three structural equation models. The first model was a full model that consists of both direct and mediated relationships among exogenous variables (tenure deviation and function deviation), mediating variables (communication frequency), and endogenous variables (cognitive deviations). In the second model, the direct links between demographic input variables and cognitive outcome variables were removed to construct a mediated model. This model tests H5, which predicts a mediating effect of communication frequency on the relationships between tenure/functional deviation and cognitive deviation of managers on a TMT. The third model kept only the direct paths from demographic input variables to the cognitive outcome variables.

Table II presents key statistical results from these models. In the first model that includes all of the possible relationships, path from tenure deviation to communication frequency was significant and negative l 23:16; p , 0.05). This is consistent with H2, which predicts a negative impact of tenure deviation on the communication frequency of a manager within a TMT. The results regarding the same link in model 2, the mediating model, were consistent with the results in the full model. Therefore, H2 is supported by the data. However, in both the full model and the mediated model, the path from functional deviation to communication frequency was not significant, suggesting that functional deviation has no significant influence on communication frequency. Thus, neither H4a nor H4b was supported. The third direct model tests H1 and H3. The results in the third model of Table II show that the path from tenure deviation to cognitive deviation in performance evaluation was positive and significant l 0:04; p ,0.05). This offers support for H1, which predicts that tenure deviation is positively related to cognitive deviation. However, the path between tenure deviation and cognitive deviation of managers in assessment of environmental uncertainty was not significant. Thus, H1 is only partially supported. Regarding H3, which predicts a positive relationship between functional deviation and cognitive deviation, neither paths between functional.

Missing Points The first limitation relates to cross-sectional research design. Because communication data was collected by asking an individual manager to recall his or her contacts with other team members over a period of two weeks before the interviews, the window of two weeks might not fully capture the routine patterns of communication among managers. Besides, a feedback influence of perception on communication is operationally possible, although additional path analysis show that the feedback effect is not significant. Second, measure of functional deviation does not consider the experiences of multi-functional backgrounds possessed by some managers. Author only counted the functional area in which a manager reported to be his or her major functional area. This treatment might also account for the non-finding results associated with functional background deviation. Third, in this study did not separate CEOs perception from the rest of the team. CEOs play a pivotal role in facilitating the teamwork of TMTs (Peterson et al., 2003). However, the evidence collected from this study shows that this assertion may be too simplistic and homogeneous to support the large amount of empirical research that involves heterogeneous variables and relationships among various demographic inputs and cognitive outputs of a TMT. The limitations and discussion provide some directions for future research to improve our understanding of teamwork in TMTs. Future researchers can improve this research by addressing the limitations of this study. We also encourage future researchers to explore the contingencies that differentiate the direct and indirect effects of demographics on the outcomes of teamwork. Particularly, using behavioral variables such as communication to conceptualize the process may overshadow the content and the meaning of these behaviors by screening out some context specific antecedents of the effectiveness of decision making. Third this research use of convenience sample may introduce some sample selection bias, although it ensures the quality and access to confidential data. Using more closely related decision-making group intervening variables, like debate (Simons et al., 1999) or consensus seeking (Knight et al., 1999), might be helpful in gaining insights into the dynamic process of top management teamwork.

Strong Point The relationship between demography and the perception of managers is supported by the impact of tenure difference on the perception difference between a manager and other members on a TMT. If a managers tenure is different from the tenures of other managers on a TMT, the manager is likely to perceive the performance of their firm differently than other members on the TMT. This finding is consistent with the group heterogeneity argument, which states that different generations of top managers are likely to have different perspectives (Peterson et al., 2003). While i agree with this explanation offered by Chattopadhyay et al. (1999) and others (e.g. Finkelstein and Hambrick, 1996), this insight could not be extended to explain the insignificant effect of tenure on managers perceptions of environment uncertainty. An explanation raised by Waller et al. (1995) seems more plausible regarding this effect of tenure on managers assessment of environmental uncertainty. Waller et al. (1995) argue the salience of a demographic attributes influence on the perception of an organizational matter is related to the feedback of the organizational matter on the demographic attribute. Because firm performance evaluation is more likely to influence the tenure of a manager, through its dictation of organizational status, accountability, and reward structure within a top management team, than environmental uncertainty, perception of firm performance would have a more salient relationship with tenure. Further evidence consistent with Waller et al. (1995)s insight can be found in another finding of this study, the mediating role of communication frequency. Based on results show that a manager with a greater tenure distance from the rest of team members on a TMT tends to communicate less frequently with others on the TMT. Subsequently, communication frequency was found to reduce perceptual difference in performance evaluation, but not in environmental uncertainty. It seems that performance-related perception is more likely to divide a top management team into different social groups that interact more intensely within their own inner circle characterized by demographic identity such as tenure. This communication tendency is also likely to reinforce group identity and promotes similarity in perspectives. Hence, one conclusion can be drawn from our study of the assumption linking demographic difference to perceptual difference and its amended proposal, the processintervened model, is that they are too simplistic to be generalized to all demographic attributes, perceptions, and teamwork processes. As suggested by some scholars (e.g. Cannella et al., 2008), the specificities in the nature of these mega-constructs and the context in which they interact need to be considered. This implies that future empirical research should not treat the relationships among these mega team constructs in a holistic way. Special attention needs to be

given to relevant theories particularly pertinent to specific dimensions of these constructs, in order to produce most meaningful and testable inferences. Implication Findings in this study have several implications for practitioners in the field. Since managers inducted to a top management team at different times are likely to have different views of the performance of their firms, managers motivation for making strategic changes to their organizations may vary. This is an issue that needs close attention by CEOs because lack of motivation will turn into resistance to changes. On the other hand, CEOs or the board of directors need to watch out for the tenure-based sub-groups in a top management team that may divide the team. Our findings further indicate that CEOs and the board of directors can resort to communication to break this tenure-based group fault line and control its negative influences on team performance. Communication promotes similarity in perception and is extremely important for resolving cognitive differences. However, to effectively communicate with other members a team member needs to find way to overcome the barriers set by their tenure differences. In order to increase their effectiveness, CEOs should deliberately design some communication channels that specifically target at enhancing communications among managers of different tenures. A mentoring program in which a senior top manager coaches a junior top manager is an excellent example of such channels. It is strongly recommended that a CEO consider programs like this to increase the effectiveness of top management teamwork. Summary As a reader I really appreciate the authors who put a lot of effort to complete this research. Based on the view I found that each of the point mention by authors support from literature from other expert. Author use differences approach which never been use by other researcher relational approach in order to provide more accurate data support and enhance the research. Although, there are a lot limitations in the research but the report still more that enough as a good literature for other researcher to further study on the related title.