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Contingencies of a leadership
symmetric dyad cooperation:
the case of the co-CEOs
Moshe Banai
Department of Management, Baruch College, New York, New York, USA, and
Philip Tulimieri
Independent Consultant, Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Abstract
Purpose –This study uses social exchange theory to describe, explain and propose the influence of dyad
partners’leadership position structure, which includes the roles they play and their existing and prospective
common experience, on their commitment to their dyad and their cooperation.
Design/methodology/approach –The study uses the case of equally empowered co-CEOs in a family
business, who play the roles of family member, ownerand executive; co-CEOs in a startupfirm, who play the roles
of owner and executive; and co-CEOs in a merger and acquisition(M&A), who play the role of executive.Co-CEOs
in familybusinesses benefit from longer existing and longer prospective dyad longevity than co-CEOs instartups,
who, in turn, benefit from longer existing and longer prospective dyad longevity than co-CEOs in M&As.
Findings –The study proposes that the roles the partners play in the dyads, and the existing and prospective
longevity of their relationship, positively influence the partners’commitment to the dyad and their level of
cooperation.
Originality/value –The study offers a model that has the potential to direct scholars at the formulation of the
theory of top management symmetric formal power dyads dynamics and assist family business owners,
startup partners, board of directors and co-CEOs in formulating and implementing upper echelons leadership
plans to enhance cooperation and coordination between equal partners.
Keywords Co-CEOs dyad, Commitment to dyad, Cooperation, Longevity of relations,
Leadership position structure
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Dyadic partners have reasons to struggle for dominance in decision-making. Some are
functional, such as the maintenance of the principle of unity of command in organizations
(Fayol, 1949;Krause et al., 2014), some are related to professional specialization (Gibeau et al.,
2016) and others involve psychological biases such as reluctance to change, doubts about
counterpart’s ability, overconfidence, biased information processing and mistrust toward the
counterpart (Cheung and Li, 2022). Struggle for dominance has been identified in social dyads
such as married and romantic couples, family members like a parent and a child, coach and
athlete, athlete tandem teams such as beach wallyball and tennis-double and others. Dyadic
partners are also found in social and business organizations. Examples include a singing duo
in a chorus, a captain and a co-pilot in an airplane cockpit, medical and administrative
hospital directors and various positions of co-CEOs, who share organizations’top echelon
leadership positions in family businesses, scaling startups and mergers and acquisitions
(M&As) (Krause et al., 2014).
Co-CEOs’dyad dynamics differ from those of romantic, athletic and socially engaged
couples in three ways. First, the co-CEO leadership dyad is unique as the pair of managers
serve at the top echelon (Hambrick, 2007) of the formal power structure and, despite some of
them possessing subconscious power motives (Delbecq et al., 2012), and other characterized
by narcissism (Chatterjee and Pollock, 2017), they have to mutually adjust their behavior
(Hall et al., 2005) and to cooperate and coordinate with each other in order to make their dyad
LODJ
45,8
1430
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Received 21 April 2023
Revised 11 February 2024
5 March 2024
Accepted 25 April 2024
Leadership & Organization
Development Journal
Vol. 45 No. 8, 2024
pp. 1430-1454
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0143-7739
DOI 10.1108/LODJ-04-2023-0188