CEO Succession: Overcoming Forces of Inertia
研究了1981-1990年间CEO继任时，企业如何通过选择不同职业专长的继任者来克服组织惯性，发现企业常选择与前CEO专长不同的继任者，且公司战略对继任者专长预测力较弱。
Population ecologists suggest that inertial pressures make it difficult for organizations to adapt their strategies and structures in response to environmental changes. One way in which organizations may attempt to overcome these inertial tendencies is by selecting executive successors with different career specializations than their predecessors, which may enable them to better cope with changing environmental contingencies. The present study examined the relationship between the previous CEO's career specialization, the corporate strategy in place at the time of the succession event, and the career specialization of the new CEO from 1981-1990. The results suggest that organizations often chose successors with different career specializations than their predecessors, and that previous corporate strategy was a relatively poor predictor of successors' specializations. These results differ from earlier research findings concerning executive succession between 1957-1981. Possible reasons for these differences are discussed, and the implications for future research are considered.