Learning to Manage a Large Diversified Firm

This study examines executives’ beliefs about the management of diversification and seeks to determine whether those beliefs are associated with their prior experiences. The study identifies three broad sets of beliefs that executives hold about the management of diversification. In spite of a longstanding theoretical linkage between experiences and cognition, this study finds no association between top managers’ prior experiences and their beliefs about the management of diversification.The article concludes by offering new theorizing about how executives learn to manage a complex diversified firm. The article also offers a number of implications for leadership development in diversified companies.