Research has found that self-appraisals are most effective with culturally diverse employees.

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Highlights

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Despite its growing social and business relevance, research on top management teams (TMTs) cultural diversity remains sparse and fragmented.

This semi-structured literature review provides a comprehensive overview and synthesis of current knowledge about cultural diversity in TMTs, and proposes an agenda for theoretical, methodological, and conceptual development.

Research on TMT cultural diversity would benefit from more explicit definitions and measures, which go beyond measures of nationality and racioethnicity.

Current research is moving from a focus on whether TMTs cultural diversity influences organizations towards how and why it matters.

With national institutional context shaping both definition and influence of TMT cultural diversity, there is a need for further research in non-western contexts.

Abstract

Despite its growing social relevance, research on cultural diversity in top management teams (TMTs) has been sparse and fragmented. To build a firm foundation and facilitate the development of this field, we review and synthesize 106 key articles published between 1997 and 2021. Our study provides a comprehensive field map explicating the antecedents and influence of TMT cultural diversity, showing that cultural diversity constitutes a distinct and important aspect of TMT diversity that has significant implications for a variety of outcomes. By critically assessing the field, we identify key research gaps and promising areas for future research.

Keywords

Cultural diversity

Top management team

Literature review

Upper echelons

Corporate governance

Internationalization

Yuliya Ponomareva (PhD, Linnaeus University) is Serra Húnter Fellow at The Autonomous University of Barcelona. Her research deals with corporate governance and strategic management, with specific focus on organizations’ upper echelons such as top management teams and boards of directors. Yuliya is a member of editorial review board at Corporate Governance: An International Review and Journal of General Management. Her work has appeared in journals such as Corporate Governance: An International review, Long Range Planning, Journal of Management and Governance.

Timur Uman (PhD, Lund University) is a Professor in Accounting and Control at Jönköping International Business School. His research is on corporate governance and accounting with specific interest in team diversity and team processes in top management teams and corporate boards. Uman's research has appeared in journals such as Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Corporate Governance: An International Review, Small Business Economics, Public Management Review, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Journal of International Accounting and Auditing and Taxation.

Virginia Bodolica (PhD, HEC Montreal) is The Said T. Khoury Chair of Leadership Studies and a Professor of Management at American University of Sharjah. Her research is on strategic management, corporate governance and leadership with specific emphasis on the interaction between corporate governance mechanisms and organizational outcomes. Bodolica's research has been published in journals such as The Academy of Management Annals, Strategic Management Journal, Strategic Organization, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Business Research, and Business Ethics: A European Review.

Karl Wennberg (PhD, Stockholm School of Economics) is a Professor at the Department of Management and Organization at Stockholm School of Economics. His research deals with entrepreneurship, organizational dynamics (the birth, entry, and growth of firms), and diversity in organizations. He is a senior editor at Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, a visiting editor at Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal and on the editorial board of Journal of Business Venturing, Industry & Innovation and the Academy of Management Journal. He has published over 50 scholarly articles in journals such as Management Science, Journal of International Business Studies, Academy of Management Perspectives, Research Policy, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Journal of Business Venturing, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Journal of Management, Long Range Planning, and PNAS and in a number of books.

© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc.