
Michael MayerUniversity of Bath | UB · Faculty of Management
Michael Mayer
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Publications (40)
Prior research has found that corporate political activity (CPA) can both positively and negatively impact firm performance. Combining agency theory with the resource-based view, we examine the relationship between domestic lobbying (a key form of CPA) and firm performance by explicating the moderating effects of international and product diversifi...
Overconfident CEOs overestimate their chances of success. We therefore argue that CEO overconfidence is associated with corporate strategy choices that are considered to be riskier but potentially render higher rewards. Using a dataset of public US firms from 1994 to 2009 we show that CEO overconfidence reduces the level of firms’ product diversifi...
This study examines the extent to which perceptions of family‐friendly organisational culture relate to employees' satisfaction with work–family balance (SATWFB) and how this, in turn, associates with their turnover intentions (TIs). Furthermore, we explore the extent to which employee experiences of different levels of government effectiveness (GE...
Previous research on idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) has treated them as concrete events, arguing that these ideals shape employment relationships and impact on work performance over long periods of time. However, some types of ideals may be negotiated and shaped over short periods of time. The aim of this research is to understand the social context...
Technological diversification has been linked to a wide range of phenomena, including financial performance, innovation, product diversification and inter‐organizational relationships. This is the first systematic review of this literature and provides an overview of its historical development and conceptual foundations. It finds that the role of c...
Technological diversification has been linked to a wide range of phenomena, including financial performance, innovation, product diversification and inter‐organizational relationships. This is the first systematic review of this literature and provides an overview of its historical development and conceptual foundations. It finds that the role of c...
Research Summary: This article explores the impact of family and professional managers on performance and how this relationship is affected by international and product diversification. Using a dataset of 262 German firms from 2000 to 2009, we find that an increasing proportion of family managers on the management board is associated with higher pe...
This paper examines the relationship between technological, product and international diversification. Drawing on the resource based view it investigates how growth in product and international diversification affects technological diversification and specifically aims to clarify which strategy shows the stronger impact. Our results suggest a posit...
This article examines the long-run impact of the 1992 completion of the European Single Market on the diversification and internationalization of European business. It does so at a particular moment of crisis: the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union (“Brexit”). The article finds that completion of the European Single Market is indeed...
Theory predicts that economic and institutional changes increase competitive pressure and lead to the retreat of unrelated diversified firms, while, at the same time, allow more economically efficient related forms of diversification to persist. This study investigates the long-term waves of diversification in France, Germany, and the United Kingdo...
We establish prior diversification experience as a key determinant of the relationship between growth of product and international diversification. Prior diversification experience allows firms to overcome short run constraints on simultaneous diversification growth imposed by the difficulty to transfer tacit knowledge, ambiguous competencies, and...
This paper examines the impact of ownership on product and international diversification. While ownership concentration has received considerable attention from agency theorists we argue that a more nuanced analysis is necessary. We consider how the identity of owners moderates the impact of ownership concentration on diversification strategies. We...
This longitudinal study of large European firms (1993–2007) offers a conceptual model that explains how two key aspects of the macro-competitive environment, macroeconomic growth and foreign competition, shape product and international diversification. The results indicate that greater foreign competition reduces product diversification but fosters...
This paper examines the impact of ownership on product and international diversification. While ownership concentration has received considerable attention from agency theorists we argue that a more nuanced analysis is necessary. We consider how the identity of owners moderates the impact of ownership concentration on diversification strategies. We...
Richard Whittington is Professor of Strategic Management at the Saïd Business School and Millman Fellow at New College, University of Oxford. His current research interests are in the practice of strategy, particularly how practice is changing and how it is learnt. He is author or co-author of eight books, including Strategy as Practice: Research D...
This paper assesses economic, political and national institutional explanations for continued resistance to the multidivisional form in France, Germany and the United Kingdom during the 1980s and 1990s. It finds that the economics of different diversification strategies play a significant but changing role in the structural choices of large corpora...
A paradox of a world in continuous change is that managers risk being trapped by routinised and standardised practices of change. Reporting from a tri-method study of organising, we examine how effective change practitioners must skilfully and creatively adapt common practices (e.g. project management and Organizational Development) to particular s...
Strategy is a pervasive and consequential practice in mostWestern societies. We respond to strategy’s importance by drawing an initial map of strategy as an organizational field that embraces not just firms, but consultancies, business schools, the state and financial institutions. Using the example of Enron, we show how the strategy field is prone...
This research note examines the stability of diversification performance relationships in three countries (France, Germany and the United Kingdom), for two time periods (1982–84 and 1992–94). The aggregate findings, taking the three countries and two time periods together, support a general model favoring related-constrained diversification. Howeve...
After the American challenge: mapping the diversified multinational in post-McKinsey Europe
This paper examines the trajectory of the multidivisional structure in Europe during the 1980s and 1990s – i.e. after “the American challenge”. As an American import, the multinational structure’s continued success is doubted by both “national institutionali...
The fate of national approaches to management in the global economy is contested (Whitley, 1999; Geppert et al. in this volume). As we shall see, the arguments are complex, the stakes high. Nevertheless, the key question may, initially at least, be put quite simply: arc previously diverse national forms of business organization and management pract...
This book traces the evolution of the large industrial corporation in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom from the 1950s to the 1990s. It combines long-run trends with illustrative case studies of leading companies and their managers to present a rich and complex picture of corporate change. In particular, the authors highlight the paradox of i...
Why are some firms successful on global markets whilst others are not? In this collection of papers, a group of distinguished international researchers examine the inter-relationship between national context, firm performance and global competitiveness. In a series of empirical studies covering major industries (such as banking, telecommunications,...
This paper distinguishes between 'tight' and 'loose' perspectives on national business systems. These two systems perspectives are compared in the light of new and existing European data on corporate strategies and structures, on the one hand, and national institutions of business finance, management control and top management development on the ot...
This paper examines the Chandlerian model of corporate development in the light of new data on the strategies and structures of large European firms in the post-war period. Conglomerate strategies continue to spread, but these are typically less stable than strategies of related diversification. The divisional structure now predominates in Europe,...
As European economic integration proceeds, this paper examines the integration of managerial elites in the major West European economies. It finds that top manager profiles in France, Germany and the United Kingdom have changed very little despite major internal and external pressures over the last two decades. French top managers still enjoy stron...