How Brand Managers Handle Crisis Management

outcomes has formally been captured by the concept ‘managerial discretion’ (Wangrow, Schepker, & Barker, 2015). According to several researchers, top managers' discretion, and especially that of CEOs, has significantly increased in recent years (Quigley & Hambrick, emphasizing the need to explore the consequences of top managers' choices and behavior  

more detail. In present times, top managers are particularly challenged to ensure the competitiveness of their firm by formulating and executing a business strategy that considers the opportunities and risks of the digital transformation (Hess, Matt, Benlian, & Wiesböck, 2016). When taking a closer look at the academic literature, however, it becomes evident that 

studies investigating the antecedents and consequences of top managers' characteristics and behaviors have considered digitalization aspects only rarely. An overview of relevant studies is provided in Table 1. Existing empirical studies directly associating top managers with digitalization aspects investigated, for instance, dedicated digitalization-specific roles within the executive team (Horlacher & Hess, 2016; Medcof, 2008; Singh & Hess, 2017) or the 

Nature of leadership In general

these studies jointly highlight the vast and multifaceted impact that the digital transformation has on firms as well as its top managers. Additionally, they demonstrate the need for further research into this far-reaching and increasingly relevant topic. Despite the scarcity of research, related research foci provide initial indications for top managers' role in the digital 

transformation, such as studies associating top managers with innovation outcomes or change processes. For example, innovation scholars found that TMTs directly influence innovation in firms by determining the firm's innovation strategy (Elenkov, Judge, & Wright, Talke, Salomo, & Kock, 2011; Talke, Salomo, & Rost, 2010) and resource commitment 

(Wrede & Dauth, 2020). Additionally, they recognize new business opportunities (Shepherd, Mcmullen, & Ocasio, 2016; Yukl, 2010). Furthermore, top managers have been associated with firms' commitment to the status quo (Hambrick et al., 1993), corporate strategic change (Wiersema & Bantel, 1992), and risk-taking (Wright, Kroll, Krug, & Pettus, 2007). Moreover, prior research suggests that top managers play a critical role in business model innovation 

Highlight the relevance of support

and commitment for firms' value creation from information technologies. Because the digital transformation is grounded in concepts like change and innovation, these studies underline the relevance of the study's topic and provide initial reference points for a deeper investigation of top managers in firms' digital transformation processes.that builds on the Gioia 

methodology (Gioia, Corley, & Hamilton, 2013). Theoretically, the study mainly draws on upper echelons research and insights from the strategic management and leadership literature. While digitalization topics have rarely been addressed in top management research overall, we are also not aware of any research study that has empirically explored the 

role and actions of top managers in the digital transformation yet. The few existing studies focus on leadership behaviors (e.g., Schwarzmüller et al., 2018) as well as functional roles within the TMT (e.g., Singh & Hess, 2017). Consequently, the pursuit of obtaining an empirical understanding of the role of top managers in firms' digital transformation, as well as their related actions that aim to deal with this change process, remains at its outset. An 

Research design thus represents a reasonable

pproach to collect first insights and to develop a basic theoretical framework.Our empirical study relies on 27 in-depth interviews. In line with Carpenter et al. (2004), who state that top managers are often identified based on their title or position, 17 out of the 27 respondents were defined as top managers (i.e., individuals with job titles that include the designations 

‘Chief’ (Cxx), ‘head,’ ‘(senior) vice president,’ and ‘director’). The remaining 10 respondents had very close proximity to top managers and were very familiar with the top managers' tasks and decisions (e.g., executive assistants or other immediate reports). The interviews were conducted during a period from September 2019 until December 2019, either in person or via 

phone calls. To identify the sample firms, we relied on purposive sampling (Patton, 2015), which ensured that our selection of firms includes those that may provide us with comprehensive insights about the digitalization-related actions and decisions of top managers in large German firms. In particular, we limited our sampling frame to stock-listed firms located in Germany with at least 500 employees and that have been existing for 10 years or longer. By drawing on firms fitting this profile, we specifically target a group of firms that we expect to 

Conclusion

have made conscious efforts to address digitalization topics. The revolutionizing nature of digitalization changes the way of doing business for firms and entire industries (Verhoef et al., 2019) and promises gains in efficiency, innovation, and competitiveness (Parida, Sjödin, & Reim, 2019). Consequently, it is reasonable to expect that top managers of incumbent firms think of suitable strategies that address the firms' changing conditions in order to meet the 

expectations of shareholders. Our resultant sample comprises firms from a broad range of industries: aviation (AVIA), automotive (AUTO), chemicals (CHEM), conglomerate (CONG), consumer electronics (ELEC), energy (ENER), fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), insurance (INSUR), logistics (LOGI), mechanical engineering (ENGI), media (MEDIA), pharmaceuticals (PHAR), retail (RETAIL), software (SOFT), and telecommunications (TELE). 

Next to covering firms from diverse industries, the size of the firms in terms of the number of individuals employed worldwide also varied significantly from 800 up to 650,000 employees. By gathering valuable information from such an extensive and diverse set of organizations, we can obtain a broad understanding of the digital transformation in large German firms. To 

obtain meaningful and comprehensive insights about the role of top managers in the digital transformation as well as their digitalization-related actions, we purposively interviewed either top managers directly or subordinates that have close ties with the top managers and can report about their responsibilities, decisions, and actions based on their personal observation

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