Top Management Team Characteristics and Corporate Illegal Activity

Abstract

From a review of previous theoretical and empirical research in corporate illegal activity and top management team (TMT) characteristics, we develop several propositions that suggest a relationship between the two. TMT characteristics such as length of service, functional background, formal business education, age, and military service, as well as homogeneity in each of these characteristics, are hypothesized to neutralize or enhance relationships between context and corporate illegal activity. Implications of the proposed relationships and their limitations are also discussed.