Acquiring top management team, core competence through absorptive capacity and entrepreneurial orientation

Ever since Hambrick and Mason proposed upper echelon theory in 1984, Top Management Team (TMT) issues have been received tremendous attentions from academician and practitioners. Especially in the dynamic, fast-moving, and global world, the importance of TMT has become inevitably important nowadays. TMT is the soul of organization in that they make strategic decisions which effect firm's future. Furthermore, splendid performance stems from the firm's learning ability, the attitude toward entrepreneurial activities, and the emphasis of core competence, all of these issues which are affected by TMT characteristics. Hence, this study attempts to integrate relevant literature to develop a comprehensive research model, as well as to investigate the interrelationships among TMT characteristics, absorptive capacity, core competence, entrepreneurial orientation and managerial performance. Through a series of questionnaire survey, the results of this study indicate that TMT functional background diversity and educational background have significant influences on a firm's absorptive capacity and entrepreneurial orientation, which further impact on its core competence. Furthermore, firms characterized by higher entrepreneurial orientation, absorptive capacity and core competence are more likely to gain excellent performance. The Result of this study can provide important references for academic to conduct further validation and also valuable for professional to recruit TMT members.