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Abstract Few people would question the assumption that CEOs have a major impact on changes in their organizations. Yet there is surprisingly little analysis of just what this impact is likely to be; whether it will vary by industry, company, or the CEOs’ attitude and style; and what empirical data can be gathered to begin to shed some light on these issues. We decided in 1987 to interview CEOs in a variety of companies and, with the assistance of a number of our Sloan Fellows and other graduate students, were able to interview 94 executives, all of whom were current or past CEOs, and, in a few cases, COOs or presidents of divisions in conglomerates or multidivisional companies. What is distinctive about this research is that it draws exclusively on the responses of the chief executives, a point of some importance inasmuch as most of them felt that becoming a CEO changed their role and attitudes.
Edgar H. Schein (Thu,) studied this question.