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Drawing from theory and research on interpersonal attraction, as well as interviews with 42 directors of large U.S. industrial and service firms, we identified a set of social influence tactics that are less likely to be interpreted by the influence target as manipulative or political in intent and are therefore more likely to engender social influence. We consider who among top managers and directors of large firms is most likely to exercise such tactics and how their use affects the likelihood of garnering board appointments at other firms. An analysis of survey data on interpersonal influence behavior from a large sample of managers and chief executive officers (CEOs) at Forbes 500 companies strongly supports our theoretical arguments: managers' and directors' ingratiatory behavior toward colleagues is more likely to yield board appointments at other firms to the extent that it comprises relatively subtle forms of flattery and opinion conformity, which our theory suggests are less likely to elicit cynical attributions of motive. Supplementary analyses also indicate that these relationships are mediated by an increased likelihood of receiving a colleague's recommendation for the appointment. Moreover, we theorize and find that managers and directors who have a background in politics, law, or sales, or an upper-class background, are more sophisticated and successful in their ingratiatory behavior.

Using survey data on interpersonal influence behavior from a large sample of managers and chief executive officers (CEOs) at Forbes 500 companies, we examine how ingratiatory behavior directed at individuals who control access to board positions can provide an alternative pathway to the boardroom for managers who lack the social and educational credentials associated with the power elite. Findings show that top managers who engage in ingratiatory behavior toward their CEO, with ingratiation comprising flattery, opinion conformity, and favor-rendering, will be more likely to receive board appointments at other firms where their CEO serves as director and at boards to which the CEO is indirectly connected in the board interlock network. Further results suggest that interpersonal influence behavior substitutes to some degree for the advantages of an elite background or demographic majority status. Our findings help explain why norms of director deference to CEOs have persisted despite increased diversity in the corporate elite and have implications for research on corporate governance, social networks in the corporate elite, and for the sociological question of whether demographic minorities and individuals who lack privileged backgrounds have equal access to positions of leadership in large U.S. companies. Our study ultimately suggests that such individuals face a rather subtle and perhaps unexpected form of social discrimination, in that they must engage in a higher level of interpersonal influence behavior in order to have the same chance of obtaining a board appointment.

In this study, we consider the social process by which the corporate elite may have resisted pressure from stakeholders to adopt changes in corporate governance that limit managerial autonomy. We examine (1) how directors who participate in corporate governance changes that reflect greater board control over management may be subjected to a kind of informal social sanctioning, which we refer to as social distancing, on other boards; (2) how the tendency for directors to experience social distancing may be moderated by their status in the corporate elite; and (3) how directors who experience such social control could be deterred from participating subsequently in governance changes that threaten the interests of fellow top managers. We test our hypotheses with survey data on processes of social control from a sample of directors and CEOs at Forbes 500 companies and archival data on director participation in four corporate governance changes. The findings show that (1) directors who participate in governance changes that threaten managerial interests experience a higher level of social distancing on other boards, particularly when they have low to medium status in the corporate elite, and (2) directors are less likely to participate in such changes if they have recently experienced social distancing (directly or indirectly). Our theory and empirical tests ultimately address the question of how, or by what social process, boards of directors help maintain the solidarity of the corporate elite and serve the interests of corporate leaders.

This study examines the influence of the social network of board interlocks on strategic alliance formation. Our theoretical framework suggests how board interlock ties to other firms can increase or decrease the likelihood of alliance formation, depending on the content of relationships between CEOs (chief executive officers) and outside directors. Results suggest that CEO-board relationships characterized by independent board control reduce the likelihood of alliance formation by prompting distrust between corporate leaders, while CEO-board cooperation in strategic decision making appears to promote alliance formation by enhancing trust. The findings also show how the effects of direct interlock ties are amplified further by third-party network ties.

This paper explores how social psychological biases impede the social exchange relations of executives who ascend to high-status corporate leadership positions. We theorize that a combination of self-serving attribution biases among executives who gain status and egocentric biases of their prior benefactors cause a systematic difference in perceptions about the relative importance of that help to the beneficiary's success. This leads to the perception among prior benefactors that the high-status executives have not adequately reciprocated their help. We then extend this argument to explain why perceptions of under-reciprocation are heightened when the high-status executive is a racial minority or a woman but reduced when the prior benefactor is a racial minority or a woman. The final element of our theoretical framework examines the social consequences of perceived under-reciprocation for corporate leaders. We suggest that the high-status leaders' access to strategic help is reduced, and they may become the target of social undermining that can damage their broader reputation. The findings support our social psychological perspective on social exchange in corporate leadership, revealing how and why executives who have ascended to high-status positions not only may encounter difficulty obtaining assistance from fellow leaders but also may experience adverse reversals in their social exchange ties such that managers who previously aided them engage in socially harmful behavior toward them.

This study examines social discrimination in the attributions that top executives make about the performance of other firms with minority CEOs in their communications with journalists. Drawing from the literatures on intergroup relations and status competition, our theory suggests how out-group biases and negative forms of envy toward higher-status minority CEOs may increase the propensity for white male CEOs to make negative or internal attributions for the low performance of the minority CEOs' firms. We also examine how CEOs' internal attributions in conversations with journalists increase the tendency for those journalists to attribute performance to internal causes in reporting on the minority CEOs' firms. We consider how the gender and race of journalists could moderate the influence of CEOs' performance attributions on journalists' reports, such that female or racial minority journalists would be less easily persuaded by white male CEOs' internal attributions for the low performance of firms with female or racial minority CEOs, and thus less prone to issuing negative statements about the CEOs' leadership. Empirical analyses based on original survey data from a large sample of CEOs and journalists provided strong support for our hypotheses. We discuss implications of the findings for theory and research on social discrimination in the corporate elite and social psychological determinants of corporate leader reputation.