How role conflicts of female executives lead to perception changes in the Top Management Team

For more than four decades, individuals acting as top managers in organizations have been the subject of scientific research. Executives’ individual characteristics, such as personal values, experiences, expertise, and how these influence strategic choices, and consequently, the performance of an organization are part of the Upper Echelon literature as main research strand developed in 1980s. According to that, organizational outcomes are a reflection of top managers’ values and cognitions, commonly shared within the Top Management Team (TMT), which includes “the executives responsible to the CEO who meet regularly to develop organizational strategy and oversee its implementation”. TMT cognitions, and their individual set of values as psychological factors, combined with observable factors, which refer to age, education, functional background, tenure, and socioeconomic roots, shape attributes and behaviors of the role as TMT member. These collectively characterize how top managers are typically being perceived by others, and which attributes or general behaviors are expected by TMT peers.