Strategic Flexibility And Firm Performance:Research On The Moderating Mechanism Of Top Management Team Heterogenicity

With the intense knowledge updating, technological revolution and increasing globalization, the competitive environment faced by China’s firms is increasingly more complex dynamic and full of uncertainty. Strategic flexibility, which is the capability to allow the firm to proactive or respond quickly and effectively to changing conditions, and is the source of achieving sustainable development and maintaining competitive advantage. Therefore, if firm want to obtain a better performance than other competitors, it need to foster a kind of strategic flexibility system, which included adaptability, agility, corrigibility, elasticity, liquidity, plasticity and versatility, so that can adapt to market demand, even can guide the market demand, and it can get survival and development in fierce market competition.According to the results of existing empirical researches for strategic flexibility, most of them focus on the effects of external environments, and the relative researches which are from the organization internal contexts were relatively lack; However, as the strategic leaders and the key decision makers of the firm, members of the top management team (TMT) most often are identified as the catalyst for firms to develop strategic flexibility and competitive advantage, their demographic characters would impact the relationship between strategic flexibility and firm’s performance consequentially. Thus, this article tried to examine the influencing mechanism of TMT heterogeneity on the relationship between strategic flexibility and firm performance.Our text is based on the study of the relationship between strategic flexibility and firm performance, according to upper echelons theory, united the information- decision-making perspective, and introduced the moderator variable—TMT heterogeneity, analyzed the moderating effect which was caused by the TMT heterogeneity between the main effect of strategic flexibility and firm performance. This article chose Chinese listed companies from 2008-2012 disclose R&D investment data as the study sample, and analyzed the hypothesis theoretically and summarized the research conclusions, at the same time, proposed relative suggestions and prospects of future research based on the empirical study results.The results showed that:(1) The relationship between strategic flexibility and firm performance is positively correlated, that is the stronger strategic flexibility firms have, the better firm performance firms will get; (2) Age heterogeneity was positively moderating the relationship between strategic flexibility and firm performance; (3) Gender heterogeneity was negatively moderating the relationship between strategic flexibility and firm performance; (4) The tenure heterogeneity was positively moderating the relationship between strategic flexibility and firm performance, however, the function heterogeneity has no significant moderating effect on the relationship.Finally, based on the results of empirical analysis, the paper proposed some practical implications for management as follows:Manager should realize the importance of strategic flexibility, and make the full use of its positive effects for performance promoting; Manager should attach great importance to the enterprise TMT construction, strength the advantages of heterogeneity as much as possible.