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Organizational Technology and Executive Succession
Hall, James L.
19/1  (Fall 1976): 35-39

The article focuses on a study that suggest significant and definite relationships exist between organizational technology and the education and training of chief executive officers (CEO). It extends knowledge concerning the backgrounds of business executives and the executive succession process. These relationships fall roughly into two patterns that are linear and curvilinear. The level of education is in a linear relationship, increasing as the continuity or predictability of the, technology increases. Thus, the CEO's of unit or small-batch production organizations have the lowest level of education, while the CEO's of organizations with continuous-process technology have the highest level of education. The area of education is in a curvilinear relationship to technology. Technical subjects like engineering and science were studied more frequently by CEO's of organizations at either end of the technological continuum, whereas CEO's of mass-production organizations studied more frequently in the areas of business or the liberal arts.

 

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