INDUSTRY STRUCTURE AND CEO CHARACTERISTICS - AN EMPIRICAL-STUDY OF SUCCESSION EVENTS

Based on 134 CEO succession eve,lts in nondiversified,,manufacturing f irms, this study examines the relationships between industry structure and the characteristics of CEO successors. The successors. Results in dicate that industry structure plays nn important, but not pervasive, role in explaining variations in newly selected CEOs. Specifically, th e higher the level of industry and the greater the likelihood of a non throughput background in the CEO successor; the higher the industry gr owth rate, the lower the organizational tenure and age of the CEO succ essor. However, findings provide very limited support for the normativ e view that firms which match CEO successor characteristics to industr y structure realize better postsuccession performance than those with lower levels of fit. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.