There has been a long-standing debate whether the field of Management is deserving of professional status, rather than simply status as an occupation. Critics claim that the absence of a required educational background and a professional organization with its own code of ethics are what keep management from joining established professions such as medicine and law. Rather than the study management as a field, this paper studies its participants, 1070 different Chief Executive Officers from 247 companies across thirty years (1960-1989) to determine whether their demographic characteristics have changed over time in a manner reflecting professionalization of the field. Changes in CEO characteristics documenting increased reliance on human capital and decreased reliance social capital, as well as greater job mobility suggest the field of Chief Executive has become more professionalized over the course of the study.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Abbott, A. (1988). The system of professions: An essay on the division of expert labor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
2.
Althauser, R.P., & Kalleberg, A.L. (1981). Firms, occupations, and the structure of labor markets. In Ivar Berg (Ed.), Sociological Perspectives on Labor Markets, (pp. 119-149). New York: Academic Press.
3.
American Management Association (2002). About American Management Association. Retrieved August 13, 2002 from the World Wide Web: www.amanet.org/aboutama/index.htm
4.
Association to Advance Colleges and Schools of Business. (2003). Schools Accredited in Business - ordered by name . Retrieved July 21, 2003 from the World Wide Web: http://www.aacsb.edu/General/InstLists.asp?lid=2
5.
Barber, B. (1963). Is American Business Becoming Professionalized? Analysis of a Social Ideology. In E. Al Tiryakian (Ed.) Sociological Theory, Values, and Sociocultural Change (pp. 121-146). London: The Free Press of Glencoe.
6.
Becker, G.S. (1975). Human Capital, 2nd ed. New York: Columbia University Press .
7.
Boeker, W. (1992). Power and managerial dismissal: Scapegoating at the top. Administrative Science Quarterly,37, 400-421.
8.
Bommer, W., & Ellstrand, A. (1996). CEO successor choice, its antecedents and influence on subsequent firm performance. Group & Organization Management , 21, 105-123.
9.
Borst, C.G. (1995). Catching Babies: The Professionalization of Childbirth, 1870-1920. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
10.
Bresnen, M., & Fowler, C. (1996). Professionalization and British management practice: Case evidence from medium-sized firms in two industrial sectors. The Journal of Management Studies, 22(2), 159-182.
11.
Brown, D. (1989). Race for the corporate throne. Management Review, 78, 22-27.
12.
Broman, T. (1995) Rethinking professionalization: Theory, practice, and professional ideology in eighteenth-century German medicine, The Journal of Modern History, 67, 835-872.
13.
Burck, C.G. (1976). A group profile of the Fortune 500 chief executive . Fortune, May, 172.
14.
Business Roundtable. (2002). BRT Newsroom. Retrieved August 13, 2002 from the World Wide Web: http://www.brtable.org/newsroom.htm
15.
Byrne, J. (2002, June 24). Restoring trust in corporate America . Business Week, 3788, 30-35.
16.
Canella, A., & Shen, W. (2001). So close and yet so far: Promotion versus exit for CEO heirs apparent. Academy of Management Journal, 44, 252-270.
17.
Carpenter, M., Sanders, W., & Gregersen, H. (2001). Bundling human capital with organizational context: The impact of international assignment experience on multinational firm performance and CEO pay. Academy of Management Journal, 44, 493-511.
18.
Carr-Saunders A.M., and Wilson, P.A. (1962) "The Emergence of Professions" in S. Nosow and W. H. Form (Eds.) Man, Work, and Society (pp. 199-206). New York: Basic Books.
19.
Chung, K., Rogers, C., Lubatakin, M., & Owers, J. (1987). Do insiders make better CEOs than outsiders?Academy of Management Executive, 1, 325-331.
20.
Collins, R. (1990). Changing perceptions in the sociology of the professions . In R. Torstendahl and M. Burrage (Eds.), The formation of professions: Knowledge, state and strategy (pp. 11-23). London: Sage Publications.
21.
Cullen, J.B. (1978). The Structure of Professionalism. New York: Petrocelli Books, Inc.
22.
Daily, C., Certo, S., & Dalton, D. (2000). International experience in the executive suite: The path to prosperity?Strategic Management Journal, 21, 515-523.
23.
Dalton, D.R., & Kesner, I.F. (1983). Inside/outside succession and organizational size: The pragmatics of executive replacement. Academy of Management Journal, 26, 736-742.
24.
Dalton, D.R., & Kesner, I.F. (1985). Organizational performance as an antecedent of inside/outside chief executive succession: An empirical assessment. Academy of Management Journal, 28, 749-762.
25.
Datta, D., & Rajagopalan, N. (1998). Industry structure and CEO characteristics: An empirical study of success events. Strategic Management Journal, 19, 833-852.
26.
DiMaggio, P.M., & Powell, W.W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48, 147-160.
27.
Drazin R. & Kazanjian R.K. (1993). Applying the del techniques to the analysis of cross-classification data: A test of CEO succession and top management team development. Academy of Management Journal , 36, 1374-99.
28.
Etzioni, A. (Ed.). (1969). The semi-professions and their organization. New York: The Free Press.
29.
Finkelstein, S., & Hambrick, D.C. (1988). Chief executive compensation: A synthesis and reconciliation. Strategic Management Journal , 9, 543-558.
30.
Finkelstein, S. & Hambrick, D. (1996). Strategic Leadership: Top executives and their effect on organizations. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Company.
31.
Fligstein, N. (1990). The Transformation of Corporate Control. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
32.
Fligstein, N., & Brantley, P. (1992). Bank control, owner control, or organizational dynamics: Who controls the large modern corporation. American Journal of Sociology, 98, 280-307.
33.
Freidson, E. (1983). The theory of professions: State of the art. In R. Dingwall and P. Lewis (Eds.). The Sociology of the Professions (pp. 19-37). New York: St. Martin's Press.
34.
Freidson, E. (1986). Professional Powers. Chicago : The University of Chicago Press.
35.
Freidson, E. (1994). Professionalism Reborn. Chicago : The University of Chicago Press.
36.
Freidson, E. (2001). Professionalism, the third logic. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
37.
Goode, W.J. (1969). The theoretical Limits of professionalization . in A. Etzioni (Ed.), The Semi-Professions and their Organization (pp. 266-313). New York: The Free Press.
38.
Greenwood, E. (1962). Attributes of a profession. In S. Nosow and W. H. Form (Eds.), Man, Work, and Society (pp. 206-218). New York: Basic Books.
39.
Hambrick, D.C., Black, S. and Fredrickson, J.W. (1992). Executive leadership of the high-technology firm: What is special about it? In L.R. Gomez-Mejia & M. W. Lawless (Eds.) Advances in global high-technology management (pp. 3-18). Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press. 3-18.
40.
Hitt, M.A. (2000). The new frontier: Transformation of management for the new millennium. Organizational Dynamics, 28, (7-16).
41.
Judge, T.A., Cable, D.M., Boudreau, J.W., & Bretz, R.D. (1995). An empirical investigation of the predictors of executive career success. Personnel Psychology, 48, 485-519.
42.
Kerr, J.E., & Bettis, R.A. (1987). Boards of directors, top management compensation, and shareholder returns. Academy of Management Journal, 30, 645-664.
43.
Khurana, R. (2001). Finding the right CEO: Why boards often make poor choices. MITSloan Management Review, 43, 91-95.
44.
Leicht, K.T. and Fennell, M.L. (2001) Professional work. Malden, MA : Blackwell Publishers, Inc.
45.
McKenna, C.D. (1995). The origins of modern management consulting. Business and Economic History, 24, 51-58.
46.
Miller, D., & Droge, C. (1986). Psychological and traditional determinants of structure. Administrative Science Quarterly,31, 539-561.
47.
Miller, D., & Toulouse, J. (1986). Chief executive personality and corporate strategy and structure in small firms. Management Science, 32, 1389-1409.
48.
Moore W.E. (1970). The Professions: Roles and Rules. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
49.
Nadler, D.A. & Heilpern, J.D. (1998). The CEO in the context of continuous change. In D. C. Hambrick, D. A. Nadler, & M. L. Tushman (Eds.), Navigating change: How CEOs, top teams, and the boards steer transformation (pp. 28-37). Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
50.
Newcomer, M. (1955). The big business executive: The factors that made him: 1900-1950. New York: Columbia University Press.
51.
Ocasio, W. (1994). Political Dynamics and the circulation of power: CEO succession in U.S. industrial corporations, 1960-1990Administrative Science Ouarterly, 39, 285-312.
52.
Ocasio, W. (1999). Institutionalized action and corporate governance: the reliance on rules of CEO. Administrative Science Quarterly,44, 384-416.
53.
Ocasio, W., & Kim, H. (1999). The circulation of corporate control: Selection of functional backgrounds of new CEOs in large U.S. manufacturing firms, 1981-1992 . Administrative Science Ouarterly, 44, 532-562.
54.
O'Reilly, C.A., Main, B.G., & Crystal, G.S. (1988). CEO compensation as tournament and social comparison: A tale of two theories. Administrative Science Quarterly,33, 257-274.
55.
Osborne, R.N., Jauch, L.R., Martin, T.N., & Glueck, W.F. (1981). The event of CEO succession, performance, and environmental conditions. Academy of Management Journal, 24, 183-191.
56.
Pemberton, J.M., and Pendergraft, L.O. (1998) Toward a code of ethics: Social relevance and the professionalization of records management. RecordsManagement Quarterly, 32, 51-57.
57.
Pfeffer, J. (1981). Power in organizations. Marshfield, MA: Pitman Publishing.
58.
Pitcher, P., Chreim, S., & Kisfalvi, V. (2000). CEO succession research: methodological bridges over troubled waters. Strategic Management Journal, 21, 625-648.
59.
Raelin, J.A. (1997). Executive Professionalization and executive selection . Human Resource Planning, 20, 16-27.
60.
Reed, M. & Peter, A. (1992) "Professionalizing management and managing professionalization: British management in the 1980s. The Journal of Management Studies, 29, 591-613.
61.
Salancik, G.R., & Pfeffer, J. (1980). Effects of uownership and performance on executive tenure in U.S. corporations. Academic ofManagement Journal , 23, 653-664.
62.
Sanders, W. (2001). Behavior responses of CEOs to stock ownership and stock option pay. Academy of Management Journal, 44, 477-492.
63.
Swinyard, A.W., & Bond, F.A. (1980). Who gets promoted?Harvard Business Review. September/October, 6ff.
64.
Temin, Peter (1999) The stability of the American business elite. Industrial and Corporate Change, 8, (189-209).
65.
Torstendahl, R. (1990). Introduction: Promotion and strategies of knowledge-based groups. In R. Torstendahl & M. Burrage (Eds.), The formation of professions: Knowledge, state and strategy (pp. 1-10). London: Sage Publications.
66.
Trank, C.Q. and Rynes S.L. (2003). Who moved our cheese? Reclaiming Professionalism in Business Education. Academy of Management Learning &Education, 2, (189-205).
67.
United State Securities and Exchange Commission. (2002). Retrieved August 11, 2002 from the World Wide Web: http://www.sec.gov/rules/other/4-460.htm
68.
Useem, M. (1984). The inner circle. New York : Oxford University Press.
69.
Useem, M., & Karabel, J. (1986). Pathways to top corporate management. American Sociological Review, 51, 184-200.
70.
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. ( 2002). Order requiring the filing of sworn statements pursuant to section 21(a)(1) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (File No. 4-460) . Washington, DC: Author.
71.
Warner, J.B., Watts, R.L., & Wruck, K.H. (1988). Stock prices and top management changes. Journal of Financial Economics, 20, 461-492.
72.
Weber, M. (1947). The theory of social and economic organization . Glencoe, IL: The Free Press.
73.
Wilensky, H.L. (1964). The Professionalization of Everyone?American Journal of Sociology, 70, 137-158.
74.
Zajac, E.J. (1990). CEO selection, compensation and firm performance: A theoretical integration and empirical analysis. Strategic Management Journal, 11, 217-230.
