Top management team international experience and strategic decision-making

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to explore the influence of top management team international experience on international strategic decision-making rationality and, subsequently, its effect on decision effectiveness (decision performance).

Design/methodology/approach

This analysis is based on survey data of small- and medium-sized international Pakistani firms operating in the IT industry.

Findings

Results show that top management team international experience is positively related to international strategic decision-making rationality, and the latter partially mediates the international experience – decision effectiveness relationship.

Research limitations/implications

The study is based on data collected from a single industry and focuses on an international decision that occurred within a time-frame of previous four years.

Practical implications

Findings suggest that international firms, when composing their top management teams, should favor the inclusion of internationally experienced managers.

Originality/value

The study of the influence of international experience on the decision-making process in general and decision-making rationality in particular has been largely neglected in extant literature. This paper highlights one way through which the international experience of the top management team as a whole relates to the effectiveness of international decisions. The paper also advances emergent managerial cognition literature focusing on the top management team and not individual decision makers.

Citation

Azam, A., Boari, C. and Bertolotti, F. (2018), "Top management team international experience and strategic decision-making", Multinational Business Review, Vol. 26 No. 1, pp. 50-70. https://doi.org/10.1108/MBR-07-2017-0044