Business Commons^™

Environmental Change And Management Staffing: An Empirical Examination Of The Electric Utilities Industry, Ram Subramanian, Carol M. Sanchez

Peer Reviewed Articles

This paper examines the relationship between environmental change, changes in competitive dynamics, and top management staffing in the electric utilities industry during the period surrounding the passage of the Energy Policy Act of 1992 (EPAct 92). The findings suggest that following the passage of the EPAct 92, competition in the electric utilities industry intensified placing greater emphasis on achieving internal, firm-level efficiencies. This external environmental change and the corresponding shift in the competitive context resulted in an adjustment in the composition of the top management coalition in these firms. The dominant coalition following the EPAct 92 consisted of older managers …