The effects of the average characteristics of CEO and TMT on corporate performance: Evidence from state-owned, private and transnational firms in China

This research aims to explore how the characteristics of chief executive officer (CEO) and top management team (TMT) affect the firm performance. 136 managers, who were from different firms and working in a TMT, provided background data of the CEOs and relevant TMTs. The results revealed that for private companies CEO's age positively associated with the firms' performance. We attributed this result to the fact that CEOs in private firms are younger than their counterparts in State-owned and Transnational ones. Another result indicated that the size of TMT negatively and the extent of common goal reached within a TMT positively associated with the performance of the transnational companies, but it did not matter in the state-owned and private ones. We explained this differentiate result as a support to the hypothesis that if the company operates in a stable market and with a good management system, the performance of the firm will be decided greatly by the TMT. The two main results produced by this research added clarification to the contradict evidences on the function of CEOs and TMT.