Abstract

Population ecologists suggest that inertialpressures make it difficult for organizations to adapttheir strategies and structures in response toenvironmental changes. One way in which organizations may attempt to overcome these inertial tendenciesis by selecting executive successors with differentcareer specializations than their predecessors, whichmay enable them to better cope with changingenvironmental contingencies. The present study examined therelationship between the previous CEO s careerspecialization, the corporate strategy in place at thetime of the succession event, and the careerspecialization of the new CEO from 1981-1990. The resultssuggest that organizations often chose successors withdifferent career specializations than theirpredecessors, and that previous corporate strategy wasa relatively poor predictor of successors specializations.These results differ from earlier research findingsconcerning executive succession between 1957-1981.Possible reasons for these differences are discussed, and the implications for future research are considered.