• Master relevant terminology regarding top managers, board of directors and corporate governance more broadly
• Assess the determinants, as well as the benefits and drawbacks, for top managers’ and boards’ involvement in strategic decision-making
• Reflect, write and critically discuss about several (hot) topics in the field of strategic leadership and corporate governance
• Identify, scrutinize, and analyze complex problems and decisions in the field of strategic leadership and corporate governance

This course gives a better understanding of top management theories and  is suitable after you have taken a course in strategic management and/or business strategy.

The shaping of today’s corporate governance landscape and the functioning of top management teams within it have become a major topic of discussion in the last decade. This interest has been intensified by recent corporate failures and scandals among both American and European companies. We have all heard of Enron, World Com, Ahold, and Volkswagen. This course would examine the internal and external problems that lay behind such management failures and scandals. The main focus of this course would be on the behavior of the board of directors and the top management team and relatedly also on the role of these bodies in the governance and strategic decision-making processes of primarily large publicly-traded firms, but also in smaller firms. This course additionally would take a closer look at the current state of the art of governance practices of firms, primarily large corporations but also smaller firms, their effects on the firms’ strategic decisions and performance.

The goal of this course would be to familiarize students with how the top leaders in a company make decisions. Specifically, this course provides students with a better understanding of how the personal characteristics of Chief Executive Officers (CEO), Top Management Team (TMT) members, and directors sitting on the supervisory boards can explain firm-level outcomes, such as strategic investments, acquisitions, diversification, corporate social responsibility, and even financial fraud and illegal activities. Moreover, students would understand the strengths and weaknesses of the corporate governance mechanisms meant to ensure a better alignment of the interests between managers and shareholders and relatedly why they can sometimes fail and lead to scandals, like Enron.

The learning objectives of this course would be closely related to the assessment formats. The four types of assessments (team exercises, blog post, individual assignments, and participation) touch upon all the six types of learning outcomes identified in the Bloom’s taxonomy, that are from bottom to top: remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. Specifically, the participation and team exercises would be targeted at remembering, understanding, applying, and analyzing the material. The individual assignments and blog posts are targeted at analyzing, evaluating, and creating.

• Hambrick, D.C., & Fukutomi, G.D.S. 1991. The Seasons of a CEO's Tenure. Academy of Management Review, 16(4): 719-742.
• Eisenhardt, K.M., & Schoonhoven, C.B. 1990. Organizational Growth: Linking Founding Team, Strategy, Environment, and Growth Among U.S. Semiconductor Ventures, 1978-1988. Administrative Science Quarterly, 35(3): 504-529.
• Gupta, A., Nadkarni, S., & Mariam, M. 2019. Dispositional sources of managerial discretion: CEO ideology, CEO personality, and firm strategies. Administrative Science Quarterly, 64(4), 855-893.
• Robert Mitchell, J., Shepherd, D. A., & Sharfman, M. P. 2011. Erratic strategic decisions: when and why managers are inconsistent in strategic decision making. Strategic Management Journal, 32(7), 683-704.
• Hayward, M.L.A., & Hambrick, D.C. 1997. Explaining the Premiums Paid for Large Acquisitions: Evidence of CEO Hubris. Administrative Science Quarterly, 42(1): 103-127.
• Hayward, M.L.A., Rindova, V.P., & Pollock, T.G. 2004. Believing One’s Own Press: The Causes and Consequences of CEO Celebrity. Strategic Management Journal, 25: 637-653.
• Hillman, A. J., & Dalziel, T. 2003. Boards of directors and firm performance: Integrating agency and resource dependence perspectives. Academy of Management Review, 28: 383-396.
• Lin, S., Pope, P.F., & Young, S. 2003. Stock Market Reaction to the Appointment of Outside Directors. Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, 30: 351-382.
• McDonald, M. L., Westphal, J. D., & Graebner, M. E. 2008. What do they know? The effects of outside director acquisition experience on firm acquisition performance. Strategic Management Journal, 29(11), 1155-1177.
• Zhu, D. H. 2014. Group polarization in board decisions about CEO compensation. Organization Science, 25(2), 552-571.
• Dalton, D.R., Hitt, M.A., Certo, S.T., & Dalton, C.M. 2007. The Fundamental Agency Problem and Its Mitigation. Academy of Management Annals, 1(1): 1-64.
• Sanders, G., & Hambrick, D.C. 2007. Swinging for the Fences: The Effects of CEO Stock Options on Company Risk Taking and Performance. Academy of Management Journal, 50(5): 1055-1078.Fredrickson, J.W., Hambrick, D.C., & Baumrin, S. 1988. A Model of CEO Dismissal. Academy of Management Review, 13: 255-270.