New outsider CEOs reorganize top teams to align vision and strategy and integrate themselves into the firm, e.g. by building legitimacy and trust. A key lever for the new CEO is changing top team interdependence, how much what one person does affects the others. Horizontal interdependence emphasises functional over divisional roles, vertical de-emphasizes hierarchy to support creativity; collective reward coordinates execution. These propositions by Aktan & Weis were supported by analysis of 182 S&P CEO successions. The effects hold for these levers individually not collectively.
Source: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8551.70050
