Executive Succession
Authors: Schepker Donald 
Published: June 2024

Executive succession is the process by which organizational leadership among the executive ranks of an organization changes between individuals. All organizations must experience executive succession at some point in their life cycle if they are to continue operations. Ensuring effective continuity in executive leadership can be critical to future organizational success. The most oft-studied position in executive succession research is the organization’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) who has ultimate organizational responsibility, while some research explores succession among other executive leaders primarily in the top management team (TMT). The TMT is typically the CEO’s direct subordinates, who often occupy C-Suite or C-level positions (e.g., Chief Financial Officer). Existing research largely employs theoretical explanations related to agency theory, sociopolitical dynamics, group decision-making processes, and information processing. For instance, research relying on agency theory highlights the role of performance influencing when and whether CEO succession will occur. Research using theory on group decision making and information processing illustrates the role of external information sources in influencing decision processes and the role of biases in altering how information is processed. Succession research has largely focused on four topics. First, researchers consider the circumstances under which executive succession will occur. This includes both voluntary (e.g., unforced) turnover, such as CEO retirement, and forced turnover (e.g., CEO dismissal). Second, some literature considers how succession will occur. This includes research on executive succession planning, which is the process organizations employ to identify, assess, and develop candidates as executive successors. Third, scholars consider who will be selected. This stream of research largely focuses on identifying the characteristics that organizations seek when selecting new executive leaders. Finally, much research focuses on what the consequences of succession events are. This stream identifies impacts on organizational behaviors, performance, and other impacts due to changes in executive leadership. Executive succession research crosses the boundaries of management, psychology, sociology, economics, finance, and accounting because of its many antecedents and broad, far-reaching implications. As such, the resultant literature in this bibliography reflects a wide variety of theoretical and empirical traditions. This bibliography first introduces key overviews of research on executive succession, which is followed by articles examining research on executive succession planning and executive selection as key facets of understanding the process by which organizations prepare for succession and select the next leader. The overview then examines the antecedents of CEO turnover and dismissal and TMT turnover. The final section explores the consequences of executive succession for organizational behaviors (e.g., strategic change); subsequent organizational performance; and the impacts of non-CEO executive turnover on organizations. Theoretically, this section illustrates tension between scapegoating and disruption as means by which executive succession can influence subsequent organizational outcomes.