Experience maketh the mind? Top management teams’ experiential background and cognitive search for adaptive solutions

The adaptive strategies of firms depend on executives’ forward-looking cognitive search. We examine how cognitive search is affected by the formative experiences of the executives making up a firm’s top management team (TMT). Drawing on research on adaptive search, cognition, and the upper echelons, we examine the extent to which educational level, diversity of functional expertise, and the length of industry tenure of TMT members will be...